His Loyal Pet
by Just a Lonely Lorekeeper
Summary: The night Harry summons the Knight Bus to escape the Dursleys, he ends up bringing a new companion—a poor black cat that he decides to take as a second familiar. But this cat isn't any ordinary cat, and it has big plans for its new master. Sirius really should've kept his plans a bit more secret…especially with his cousin so close… [Harry/Bella, Harry/Harem, Dark-but-Good Harry]
1. Chap 1: Midnight

**Well, I said I'd do it, so here it is!**

**Hello everyone, I'm the Lonely Lorekeeper, and welcome to my second Harry Potter fanfiction. A while ago, I accepted a challenge from another Fanfictioneer on this site, _timbarney110_. The challenge, listed as Loyal Pet Challenge, caught my attention some time ago, and so I got permission to write a version of that challenge. I won't be posting the full explanation here, as that would probably just take way too much space, and you can just go find it for yourselves since I listed where you can find it here. However, I will go over the basics.**

**Essentially, Harry ends up picking up a cat the night he summons the Knight Bus and brings it along with him, eventually deciding to make it a second familiar, after Hedwig. Turns out, though, that cat isn't just any cat, but is actually Bellatrix Lestrange, who decides to make Harry the most powerful wizard ever, as well as such an absolute alpha male that literally no woman can say no to him. Basically, this will be about a Harry that gets into a relationship with Bellatrix and several other woman while becoming a very powerful grey-side wizard.**

**And, of course, there will be lemons! However, since this starts in Harry's third year, and I feel uncomfortable writing lemons about a 13 year old with a 30-something year old, I've decided to tweak the ages slightly. in this fanfiction, students start at Hogwarts at age 13, meaning Harry is currently 15 years old. Not a whole lot older, but old enough that I feel less uncomfortable about the shipping.**

**Anyways, that's enough for me, let's just get to the story!**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Midnight**

The wheels of Harry's trunk rumbled over the rough asphalt road as he walked in a frustrated march away from Number Four Privet Drive. He tried not to think too hard or too much about the events of the past hour, as to do so would only further foul his already terrible mood, as well as bring him no small amount of anxiety and fear for the situation he now found himself in. Instead, he simply kept his eyes forward, looking for some place to go, to escape.

As the streetlights began to flicker on with the setting of the sun, however, and darkness began to fill the street with the approaching night, Harry came to a stop with a sigh. His goal was to get to the Leaky Cauldron, possibly buy a room with what little gold he still had from the end of last term, but the fastest way he knew was by broom. He doubted it would be wise to fly in plain view of the nearby houses, but they seemed to go on forever, no matter how much he walked. And, even if he tried to fly in the dark of the night, he wasn't so confident in his skills yet to try night flying with heavy cargo.

So, with a sigh of frustration, Harry turned and trudged over to a nearby bench, sitting not far from the neighborhood park, and sat down for a moment to collect himself. Once he did, though, his thoughts returned to the evening he'd just come from, and his worries spilled over him.

How could he have been so stupid?

He had known that Aunt Marge, the utter bigot that she was, would spew such hateful remarks about him and his parents. He had been expecting it, ever since Uncle Vernon had mentioned that she would be coming to visit for the week. Still, she had been in rare form that evening, her words spewed with even more venom and disgust than he had heard in a long time. Perhaps it was due to the brandy she had been drinking—she had sipped more than her fair share of the bottle, after all—but it was no excuse for the attitude she'd had.

Looking back in the moment, Harry was glad he'd managed to convince Aunt Petunia to sign his permission slip to visit Hogsmeade during the school year before Marge had shown up. He'd doubted he'd have the patience with Marge to last through her visit, as Vernon had suggested as a test for him. As it was, he'd been right, but Hedwig had already flown off with the signed slip to Professor McGonagall before anything could happen.

And oh, did something happen.

Harry sighed, leaning forward to rest his head in his hands. In the fourteen years that he'd been living with the Dursleys, he'd met Aunt Marge often enough to know a few things about her. And, for whatever reason, though she'd mock and demean him and his father very often in her little tirades with her brother, she had never spoken ill of Harry's mother. He assumed it had something to do with Petunia, rather than any kindness towards him, of course.

Again, though, Marge had drank a lot of brandy that evening, and so her words came much easier than normal. And the things he'd heard her say, the hateful words that she'd used against his mother, it had both shaken him to the core and filled his soul with rage. All his attempts to calm himself, all his tricks to calm himself, wouldn't have helped him in that moment, and he'd turned back to Marge, more than willing to hit her back with those same hateful words.

Unfortunately, Harry's magic had different plans, and rather than simply shutting her up with his own tirade of insults and slurs, Aunt Marge had found herself shut up by a sudden swelling as all the hot air she'd been spewing built up inside her and blew her up like a hot air balloon. Even as she screamed for Vernon to help her, and even as he had tried to help her, Aunt Marge had floated up out of her chair, out the back door of the Dursley's house, and up and out into the sky.

Harry had been gone before they could even get to him.

As soon as he'd left Privet Drive, his mind had started whirling. He'd been reminded of the previous year, when the house elf Dobby had tricked the Ministry into thinking he'd cast a spell in front of Muggles, breaking the Statute of Secrecy and being given a harsh warning in return. That had just been for dropping a cake on someone, too—this was literally blowing someone up, and then letting them float off for who knows how long, where who knows how many people could see her?

Harry shivered at the thought. No doubt about it, he would be expelled for what he'd done, there was just no other way. But if that were the case, he wasn't going to stand around waiting for it. At the very least, he wanted to go someplace where he wouldn't have to worry about the Dursleys anymore. If he wasn't going to be able to go to Hogwarts anymore, then he would grab whatever sanctuary he could find.

Those had been the thoughts Harry had held to that night, as he'd walked off into the bleeding sunset, and those were the thoughts that were now, once again, troubling his mind. He had no plan of how to go forward, other than get to the Leaky Cauldron and…see where to go from there. Maybe he could get a job working at one of the shops in Diagon Alley? It would likely be better than anything he could get in the muggle world—he'd only had two years of schooling before Hogwarts where he hadn't had to worry about Dudley forcing his grades lower, and he doubted that would fly.

Before he could follow that line of thought any further, Harry was roused from his despondent attitude by a nearby rustling. The young wizard paused, his nerves standing on end—and after fourteen years of living with the Dursleys and two years of being faced with life-or-death scenarios at the school he called his home—he knew well to listen to those nerves.

Harry drew his wand.

The rustling was coming from a group of bushes just on the other side of the road. A nearby lamppost was shining a wide circle of light in front of them, and he could just make out the faintest of the bush's movement. He gripped his wand tightly, and slowly moved behind the bench, using it as a makeshift barrier between him and whatever might come at him through those bushes. Whatever it was, by the sound of the crashing and snapping of branches, it must've been something large.

At least, that was what Harry had assumed. But as he stood there, slightly crouched behind the bench, the disarming spell resting in the back of his mind ready to be released, the bushes parted for a second, and bounding out into the light of the lamppost was a jet black cat.

Harry's whole figure slumped from unneeded tension, and he slowly stood back up, his eyes on the cat. It was clearly a stray—not only did it not have a collar around its neck, but it also looked more than a bit mangy and sickly. He was certain that he could see its ribs from where he was standing, and its fur looked dull and drab. Sighing, Harry slipped his wand back into his pocket and cautiously walked closer to the cat.

"Hey there," he softly called out, and the cat perked up, looking over at him. Harry knelt at the edge of the road, patting his knee and gesturing to the cat. "Hey there, pal, you alright?"

The cat stared at him for a moment, its tail flicking, before it slowly padded over to him, a noticeable limp in one of its legs. As it got closer, Harry noticed that there was some blood on its flank—clearly, it was not only unwell, but had also been in a bit of a fight, and recently. His soft heart went out to the feline as it limped closer, and his hand slowly reached out to gently stroke down its back—which it only shied away from for a second, before leaning into his touch with a soft rumbling purr.

Harry began to rub his hand along one of its ears as he looked over its wound. It wasn't deep, but clearly it was bad enough to cause some discomfort for the cat. He could probably fix it up once he got to the Leaky Cauldron—over the years, he'd gotten used to fixing up his own Dursley-inflicted injuries, so it couldn't be that hard for a cat. "Oh Merlin," he murmured softly, "what happened to you?"

His answer came not from the cat, but from another rustling in the bushes.

Harry froze once more, and the cat he'd been petting seemed to freeze as well, before spinning around quickly, arching its back, and hissing ferally. Harry's eyes shot up to the nearby thicket, and once more he saw the bushes begin to part. This time, though, there was no small and sickly cat that stumbled out of them—instead, slowly stalking out of the shadows was some kind of large beast. It was a dog, just as black as the cat, but standing what looked to be almost four feet tall. In the dark, its eyes seemed to glow, and its gleaming teeth appeared as it let loose a growl.

This time, Harry did not hesitate. As soon as he could clearly see the threat, Harry stood tall once more and snapped his wand out in front of him. The disarming spell, _Expelliarmus_, shot from his wand in a flash, summoned by his pure instincts and adrenalin.

Harry wasn't able to see if he'd hit the dog at all, though, as no sooner had the spell shot from his wand than had an enormous, gaudily painted purple double-decker bus suddenly and inexplicably appeared right in front of him. Harry's eyes widened, and the cat at his feet yowled in surprise, both of them falling over in shock. Harry stumbled back, his wand still in hand, as the bus' doors slowly swung open, and a man in slightly shabby clothes stepped out.

The man, who only appeared to be five years older than Harry, if that, pulled a card from his pocket and began to read. "Welcome to the Knight Bus," he read, "Emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor for this evening."

"I…I'm sorry?" Harry asked, the words spilling out of him without him really thinking them.

The man, Stan Shunpike as he'd called himself, slipped the card back into his pocket and stared back down at Harry. "Well, it's just like I said, this here's the Knight Bus, emergency transport. Anywhos, I's'posing you're the one that called us down here? Whacha doin' on the ground, though, you that knackered?"

Harry's head spun from the sudden barrage of questions from Stan, his accent not helping him understand him much, but he soon figured out what he was trying to say. "I'm not tired," Harry replied, slowly dragging himself back up to his feet. "I just…tripped. You startled me, I hadn't been expecting you."

"Oh…oh, is that right?" Stan asked, frowning, before adjusting his suit and looking back to the Knight Bus. "Well den, I'm guessing you ain't in need of a ride, then, eh?"

"Oh, no! Actually, I could use that," Harry shook his head, grabbing his trunk and dragging it towards the bus. The threat of the dog was still looming nearby, he felt, and he didn't want to linger and longer than need be. Besides, hadn't he just been bemoaning the fact that he didn't know another way to get to the Leaky Cauldron besides flying on a broomstick? Perhaps this was a sign that his luck was turning around.

Stan turned back to Harry and snapped, shooting the young man a lopsided smirk. "Well, that's good to hear—we've got a long night tonight, after all, can't be wasting anytime on false alarms and layabouts, now can we, eh? Alright, where are you headed? It's eleven sickles for the ride, but for fifteen, I can fix you up with a warm cup of chocolate if you're interested."

"Just the eleven's fine," Harry hurriedly replied, fishing some silver coins out of his trunk before passing them to Stan. "And I'll be heading to London—Leaky Cauldron, to be specific."

"Alright then," Stan nodded, shooting Harry another grin, before reaching forward and taking his trunk from Harry's side. "And now, is that cat coming with you? I noticed it with you, is it your familiar?"

Harry paused, and he glanced back down at his side. Sure enough, the cat had not run off when the bus had arrived, and in fact was still sitting there, a bit behind him, and staring up at Stan with piercing eyes. Harry thought about correcting Stan—he already had a familiar, Hedwig, wherever she was—but he remembered the dog again, and the wound that was still bleeding in its leg. Before the cat could complain, Harry leaned down and picked it up off the ground.

"Uh, yeah, the cat's with me," Harry nodded, and without another word he stepped onto the Knight Bus.

"Well, alright then!" Stan replied, taking Harry's trunk, and with a labored grunt lifting it onto the bus behind him. Once he was on, and once Harry and his new feline companion had found somewhere to sit, Stan turned and spun a grin at the both of them, leaning on a nearby handrail. "Let's get this show on the road! Ern! Next stop, London!"

And with that, they were off.

* * *

Harry was quickly coming to realize that there was no good method of transportation in the magical world besides broomsticks. Though the Knight Bus was a quick and effective method of getting to the Leaky Cauldron—perhaps even faster than on broomstick—it was also the most nauseating and annoying ride he'd ever taken. The Knight Bus made wild twists and turns down streets and alleyways, and since none of the beds that made up the seats of the Knight Bus were secured in any way, he and his feline companion had been tossed about the whole way.

When they finally reached the Leaky Cauldron, the Knight Bus came to such a sudden halt that, had Harry not been expecting it, he would've likely been thrown clear across the bus and out the window. As it was, only all of his internal organs smashed against his ribcage as he held tightly to the handrails with a white-knuckled grip. Stan, who had leaned casually against another set of handrails the whole way, smirked back at Harry.

"Here you are, boy, the Leaky Cauldron. Thank you for riding with the Knight Bus, and enjoy the rest of your night."

Harry nodded shakily back at Stan, and slowly stumbled off of the bus and out into the street. The cat, who was looking possibly even more ruffled than when it had been chased by the dog from before, padded out after him, coming to stop at his feet. He reached down and picked the cat up, holding it in his arms as he waited for his trunk to be set down beside him.

"Thanks Stan…see you later, I guess," Harry said with a shrug, though before he could even finish his sentence the Knight Bus had taken off once more, disappearing so fast he could've sworn it had simply disapparated.

Sighing, Harry looked down at the cat in his arm, then reached over with his one free arm to grab his trunk and turned around to enter the Leaky Cauldron. Before he got close, however, Tom—the owner—appeared in the window of the front door and quickly held it open for him. Harry smiled as he noticed the old wizard, and nodded to him.

"Hey, Tom, thanks—I'm sorry for coming in so late, I need a room if you can give me one for the night."

"Oh, there's no need for that, Mr. Potter," Tom quickly replied, smirking back at him as he closed the door once more and walked back towards his bar. "You already have a room ready for you."

Harry froze and glanced back at Tom. "Uh, what do you mean, I already have a room ready?"

Tom paused, and he blinked in surprise. "Well, uh…I thought you knew…"

"That's alright, Tom, I'll take it from here."

At the sound of the new voice, Harry turned around quickly, and he felt the cat in his arms begin to become a bit uneasy, squirming about anxiously. Harry blinked in surprise, as standing in the doorway of a nearby room—one of the pub's private room's, Harry assumed—was a man in a lime-green bowler hat, and fine wizard robes to match. Harry had only met this man once before, and only while hidden by invisibility cloak, but he recognized him all the same.

"Minister Fudge," Harry stated, looking up at him. "What are…you doing here?"

Fudge smiled over at Harry, and his smile attempted to be warm, but it only set Harry more on edge. The cat in his arms only hissed in annoyance. "I was wondering if we could talk, Harry my boy."

Harry doubted that this was an open invitation that he could decline, and considering the events of earlier that evening, he had a good idea what this was about. Seeing no other option, Harry sighed and turned towards the private room Fudge was standing in, pulling his trunk in behind him. Fudge, for his part, merely smiled back at Harry, before stepping to the side and letting him enter.

"Now then!" Fudge began, walking towards the table that had been set up in the room for him, and sitting down at the far end where the window showed the street beyond, and where a few books and quills were set out. "Harry, it's my understanding that you ran away from home, didn't you?"

"Well, yes sir," he replied, but he quickly added, "but I had no choice! You see, I—"

"I know, I know, my boy," Fudge sighed, leaning against the table as he smiled down at Harry with that false warm smile of his. "We know all about you blowing up your aunt this evening—I can only assume how you must've been feeling at the moment, but it's all in the past now. Let's just let it be, and move on."

Harry blinked in surprise. "Wait…so, I'm not in trouble? I'm not going to be expelled?"

"Expelled?" Fudge asked, before barking out in laughter—like his smile, this too felt faked. "Harry, don't be absurd! You're not going to be expelled for something as minor as blowing up your aunt! Especially not when you didn't even mean to do it! Students don't get expelled for accidental bouts of magic—just whenever they purposefully use it, or in direct confrontation with the laws of our kind. Don't worry, you're fine!"

The cat sitting in Harry's arms summed up how Harry felt about the situation rather well by hissing at the minister again, and curling tighter into Harry's chest. Harry tried to comfort it by gently petting it, and it eased up, some.

"So, if I'm not getting expelled, then why are you here?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

At this, the minister seemed to deflate a bit, and he sighed to himself. "Well, when we found out that you'd run off, we decided that we must find you as soon as possible. After all, it's not safe for you to be out and about on your own right now, my boy, especially considering the state of things currently." He glanced up at Harry and frowned. "I'm sure you've already heard, from the paper?"

Harry frowned and shook his head. "Uh, no…what?"

Fudge slowly sauntered up to Harry, and the cat in his lap backed closer into his chest. "We have two killers on the loose, Harry. Sirius Black, and his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange. Both were notorious murderers during the previous war, and fanatic followers of You-Know-Who. It's not safe for any of us to be out with them about, so it's best if you stay somewhere safe." He smiled that fake-warm smile again. "The Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley should be safe enough for you until the school year, then you're off to Hogwarts."

Harry swallowed, his throat suddenly tight. He hadn't known about that. Followers of Voldemort were on the loose? He remembered hearing about Azkaban last year, when Hagrid had been taken away. He'd asked Ron about it, but all he'd really gotten from his ginger friend was that it was a terrible place for criminals, and no one had ever escaped before. No one until now, it seemed—and not just one, but two.

"Thank you, Minister," Harry said, swallowing tightly again. "You're too kind."

"Well, I try, my boy," the minister replied with another smile, before clapping Harry gently on the shoulder. "Now then, why don't you head off to your room—I had Tom fix you up a very nice one, room fifteen—and head to bed for the night. It's rather late, after all, and after the day you've had, I'm sure you'll like the rest."

Harry nodded, moving almost numbly out of the private room and back into the main room of the pub, the cat in his arms noticeably calming as they finally left the room. A small sigh escaped his lips, and he stroked its ear with his thumb, hoping to both calm it and himself down. "Yeah…I didn't like that either…" he murmured, a soft, nervous chuckle breaking through.

The cat murred in agreement, curling closer against his chest.

Sighing, Harry quickly mounted the stairs up to the room, Room Fifteen, and found a set of keys already waiting for him. After unlocking the door, Harry fumbled a bit with his trunk and the cat, eventually setting the cat down and holding the door open for it. The cat dashed in, and Harry quickly followed.

The room was actually rather nice, considering the conditions—it was larger than his room back with the Dursleys to begin with, so clearly it was a rather nice upgrade, and the bed was much nicer than his at the Dursleys too. There was also a desk at the far end of the room, with a chair sitting in front of it, and an open window that looked over the Alley below them. And sitting on that chair, ruffling her feathers a bit, was a very familiar figure.

"Hedwig!" Harry exclaimed with a smile, walking up to his familiar and stroking her feathers. "How did you know I was here, girl?"

The snowy owl merely barked softly back at him, before nibbling his fingertips as he pet her. Hedwig's attitude shifted quickly, though, when she noticed the other occupant in the room—the cat that had curled up on the bed. Almost instantly, Hedwig puffed herself up at the cat and began to screech angrily.

"Whoa whoa whoa, Hedwig, it's okay!" Harry exclaimed, standing between the bird and the cat, hands held up protectively. "It's okay, they're with me! They hurt themselves, and I'm trying to help them feel better. You don't need to get all attack-bird, okay?"

Hedwig stared up at her master for a moment, golden eyes meeting green, before she seemed to huff and turn around, shuffling on the back of the chair for a moment. She took a moment to shoot what looked to be another warning glare at the cat, before tucking her head under her wing.

Harry sighed, but simply shrugged and stepped away from the his familiar and back to the bed. "Sorry about that, Hedwig's usually better around other animals," Harry murmured, sitting down on the bed beside the cat and reaching into his trunk. "Now then, let's see if we can't get you fixed up, eh?"

The cat purred softly and moved closer, rubbing up against his side. Harry chuckled softly, and reached down to start rubbing its side. Soon enough, though, he found what he was looking for—a small bottle of cleaning alcohol, a medical cream, and some bandages. "Now then, this is going to hurt a bit," Harry murmured, as he reached over to the wound on the cat's leg, dabbing a bit of the alcohol onto a scrap of bandages, before pressing it into the wound.

Much to Harry's surprise, the cat did not fight too much during the procedure. It yowled and hissed in pain, but not nearly as much as he had been expecting, especially from one that had previously been a stray. Before too long, Harry stepped back with a self-assured smile, looking down at the bandage that wound around the cat's leg, holding the wound in place, and hopefully would help it heal quicker.

"Well, now that that's taken care of, you're free to go," Harry said with a smile, gesturing to the open window and the ledge beyond it.

The cat, however, didn't move.

Instead, it stood from where it had been laying during the procedure and began to nuzzle his hand again. Harry blinked in surprise, before smiling and rubbing the cat's head again. "Don't want to go, I see?" he asked, smiling down at the cat. He remembered back to what Stan had mentioned earlier, mistaking the cat for his familiar. Back there, he had thought to correct him…but did he really need to? Perhaps he could have two familiars after all—and anyways, the cat seemed to like him enough as was.

"Well, if I'm going to make you my familiar, you'll need a name," Harry murmured, still gently petting the cat. Slowly, his hand moved over the cat's fur, making it flop over onto its side and expose its underbelly. Harry paused, before smiling and gently rubbing its tummy.

"How about Midnight?" he asked. The cat perked up, and he grinned. "Well, you're a black cat, and a girl, if I'm seeing that right, so it sort of fits. You like it?"

The cat sat up and gently butt her head against his leg in reply, murring once again. Harry smiled and nodded, rubbing her forehead again. "Well then, Midnight," Harry said, before sitting upright and pricking his thumb, causing a bit of blood to prick up on his skin, "I do claim thee as mine, as my companion and partner, to serve me and protect me, and to aid me in all my future endeavors. This I state as truth, as bound by my blood."

As he spoke the ritual—a ritual he had only used once before, with Hedwig when he first got her, but had memorized since—Harry held out his thumb to Midnight, who quickly lapped up the droplets of blood on his skin. Once more, Harry felt a rush of familiar magic weave around them, the forming of a bond. It was familiar, yet different, though he chalked that up to him now having two familiars, rather than just one.

Smiling, Harry stepped back from Midnight and gently rubbed her head. "Well then, welcome to the family, Midnight. Just try to get along with Hedwig, and we should be fine," Harry said with a laugh.

Midnight, for her part, just purred.

Sighing, Harry turned and looked at the clock on the desk. Coincidentally, it had just rolled past twelve, as well, and suddenly Harry felt the full exhaustion of the day roll over him. Groaning, he stepped away from the bed and over to his trunk, pulling out a set of sleep clothes and tossing them onto the bed.

Harry quickly stripped himself of his clothes and tossed them back into his trunk, only idly noticing Midnight seeming to watch him as undressed before her and pulled on his sleep clothes. Then, stepping up to the bed, he turned out the lights, set down his glasses, and pulled back the covers of his bed. "Goodnight Hedwig, goodnight Midnight," he called out into the darkness as he nestled down into the bed and closed his eyes as he finally fell asleep.

And for a while, there was silence.

But not for long.

Midnight, who had been sitting at the foot of the bed since Harry had stood to change, shifted her violet gaze over to her master in the bed. She listened to his heartbeat, to his breathing, getting slower and slower, until she was certain that he was asleep. Once she was certain, what appeared to be a smirk slipped onto the cat's face, and she slowly sat up and at attention.

And then, she transformed. She grew in size, quickly, with soft pale skin replacing the jet black fur, long raven tresses pooling out of her head, her tail and snout disappearing, to be replaced by two smooth globes of flesh, a cute button nose, and full lips. Her eyes, though, were the same vivid and iridescent violet that they had been before.

In on sudden flash, what had once been a cat sitting at the foot of Harry's bed had been replaced by a beautiful woman. She took a moment to take stock of herself, briefly shocked by the sudden change of her own physical state, before turning to the one who caused it. The woman, her eyes gleaming, smirked, and she slowly stood from the bed, swinging her legs over the edge and softly setting her bare feet on the wood floor, which creaked under her weight as she stepped her naked form out into the moonlight shining into the room.

Bellatrix Lestrange smirked to herself in the moment. So much had changed since she'd managed her escape from Azkaban. She had to thank her dear cousin Siri for helping her figure out how to—the man must've murmured his plan to himself over and over again in his sleep, and she'd caught on enough to come up with an escape plan of her own, as well as come up with some rough plans of what she'd do once she made it back to the mainland.

The first of those, of course, being the death of the boy who had defeated her former master.

She had almost done it, too—she had managed to find him before Sirius, and had been so close to getting to him, had the mangy mutt not caught up to her and bit at her leg before she could get a spell off. She only managed to escape by changing form into her animagus form—the common black cat—and dashing off away.

And that, of course, had been when everything had changed. She had felt Harry's power radiating off of him for a moment before she'd appeared. She felt it again when he cast his instinctual magic to protect the both of them from her cousin, and the feeling—even just thinking of it now sent pleasurable shivers coursing down her frame and towards her core. It was unlike anything she'd felt before—stronger than when she'd first felt her former master's magic, more pure and wild—and it drove her insane.

It was in that moment that she knew she had to have him. Bellatrix was drawn to power, and from what she'd felt of Harry in that moment, he was capable of so much more than she or her former master could've ever expected. And he was only fifteen years old, not even a third year at Hogwarts yet. There was so much she could teach him, so many ways that he could grow—and she was eager to help him do so.

She was especially eager after he gave her that unintentional show, too. It was clear that Harry was going to be quite gifted once he was fully grown, in many, many ways.

Bellatrix smirked, her hand ghosting up her arm towards where her Dark Mark had previously been located. Though the ritual Harry had used was for a master and his familiar, it was close enough to that of a master and his slave that it had become so for her—and so, replacing the Dark Mark was the mark of her new master, the symbol of a lightning bolt with a serpent coiling around it.

A symbol of power, beside the most powerful of the beasts.

Bellatrix shivered again. She just couldn't wait to see what her master would soon become.

Smirking, the witch turned and slowly sauntered up to the bed where Harry slept soundly, unaware of the sudden transformation that had occurred in his room. Bellatrix smirked at her master, before pulling back the sheets and covers of the bed and slipping in behind him, spooning up behind him and wrapping an arm around his waist.

"Sleep well, my master," she cooed into his ear, softly kissing his neck as she nestled beside him and prepared to sleep as well, "Your loyal pet is here for you."


	2. Chap 2: Inheritance

**Well, it has been about a week since I posted the first chapter of His Loyal Pet. I did not know what the response would be to me writing this story—I was more than a little nervous, both from me picking up this story idea from _timbarney110_, and from writing about a ship that****—while I love immensely****—can be more than a bit daunting to write. Especially without the easy outs of de-aging, time travel, and freeing Bellatrix from whatever mind control or potion-related enslavement she had been put through. So, yeah, I was very nervous.**

**And yet, this first week has been one of the best first weeks for _any_ of my stories here on this site. The responses that I've been getting from the community on here have been phenomenal****—for the most part at least, there have been a couple responses pointing out the age-gap and whatever. So, just so that we're all clear, I will lay this out once more. Harry, in my fic, is 15 rather than 13, that way he's a bit more mature than just-fresh-out-of-the-preteens Harry. Bellatrix, meanwhile, has been aged down from her canon age to be in her mid-30s rather than in her 40s. In this, she was either the same age as Harry's parents, or graduated early, or whatever, so she's closer to 35 or 36.**

**Still a big age gap, but not so big or off-putting that I'm gonna stop writing.**

**With that being said, let's start Chapter 2!**

* * *

**Chapter 2: Inheritance**

The next several days spent in Diagon Alley were surprisingly nice, all things considered. Though he really wasn't allowed to leave the Alley too much—and was constantly reminded of exactly why thanks to the screaming and raving posters that were plastered to nearly every wall he passed by—it was a far cry nicer than his summer with the Dursleys had been going. He was able to use magic freely and without consequences, and had all the time in the world to spend however he wanted.

And, even if he wasn't exactly allowed to leave the Alley, he _did_ have his invisibility cloak with him, so he could very easily sneak out into muggle London to grab a meal, or perhaps finally grab some clothes that both fit him well and didn't look as though they had been out of date for the past three-hundred years.

Not that he'd ever consider doing that, of course.

Nope. Definitely not.

Even without being allowed to leave the Alley, Harry was able to find plenty of ways to keep himself entertained. Of course, one of the first things he did was go out and get whatever supplies and textbooks that he would need for the coming school year. And, since he needed something to spend time on—and after the shock and terror at the end of the last school year—he had taken to reading each of his textbooks during the evenings, getting a head start on the schooling and training he would be getting that year.

Well, most of his textbooks—both _Unfogging the Future_ and _The Monster Book of Monsters_ were books that he had yet to touch. _The Monster Book of Monsters_, as the name had suggested, was just a bit too…compelling a book for him to dare read, so he kept it tightly bound up and locked inside his trunk under his bed. As for _Unfogging the Future_…he just got a bad feeling from it…especially the bad omen symbol the author had chosen for the centerpiece of the cover.

It just looked a bit too much like that dog…

Textbooks and studying aside, though, Harry had also taken to wandering the Alley and doing a bit of window shopping. Though he had been to Diagon Alley twice already, there was still much that he hadn't been able to see before, either because he was with others who had their own agendas of what to do, or he was just a bit too self-conscious to go too far. Now, though, boredom and a lack of supervision allowed him to go anywhere in the Alley he so chose.

He tried not to linger too long by Quality Quidditch Supplies_,_ as it made him yearn for his broom and a chance to take off into the sky—but, since they were in the middle of the densely-populated London, that wasn't the smartest decision. Instead, he found himself gravitating towards Flourish and Blotts, and Lucretia's Lore-Store_,_ the two bookstores in the Alley. And, of course, Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor was always a good place to beat the heat during the long and drab summer days.

And, as it were, because he had been spending so much time around the stores and shops, Harry had actually been offered some part time jobs. Of course, he knew it was likely because he was the famous "boy-who-lived" and would drum up more attention for the stores, but it gave him another excuse to get out and have something to do. And, after a while, he actually came to enjoy what work he could help out with—the owners were, largely, nice people, and it felt good to start earning some wizarding money himself.

That, and he was free to read as much as he wanted while at Flourish and Blotts.

The one constant through it all, though, was Midnight. The cat that he had rescued and then made his familiar had stayed close to him ever since—he had even woken up that first night, after a very…memorable dream, to find her curled up beside him in bed, and she had made that spot hers every night since.

Midnight looked much better now than she had that first night he'd met her. After arriving in Diagon Alley, one of the first places he'd visited was the Magical Menagerie, as he had literally nothing to help care for a cat. Now, after having given her a decent grooming—or as decent as he could manage—and getting her a hearty helping of food, the black cat now had a glossy sheen to her coat, and a much more full and healthy figure. Something she appreciated greatly, if the constant purring was any indication.

Hedwig, of course, still gave Midnight a very piercing stare every time the two familiars crossed paths. Harry just assumed it was because Midnight was new—and was also a predatory animal that could likely go toe-to-talon with her should Harry ever end up not around in the same room to stop them—and so spent some time with Hedwig trying to get her to warm up to the new member of their family.

It was a work in progress, to say the least.

Until the two learned how to get along, Harry just chose to bring Midnight everywhere he went. For her part, Midnight seemed perfectly fine with that arrangement, so long as he didn't carry her anywhere. He'd tried that only once, and when he did she had easily wriggled out and then acted a bit more aloof to him until he had apologized…which he did. Instead, wherever Harry went, the black shadow would follow close behind, weaving between his legs, or running along a nearby wall.

The only time she ever seemed to wander off was when he went out shopping, and especially when he visited the bookstores. One minute he would be glancing over an interesting text about defense, and by the time he looked back his familiar had disappeared. He didn't mind too much—she always came back, after all—but it still made him wonder where she had gone…especially considering her odd habit of bringing him back books as well.

Books that…he was fairly certain she wasn't getting from Flourish and Blotts or Lucretia's Lore-Store, as they all discussed the Dark Arts rather…intimately. And, while he did have to admit they were compelling reads—thankfully less so than _The Monster Book of Monsters_—it did make him wonder about what his familiar got up to when he wasn't around.

Did she wander off to Knockturn Alley while he was busy perusing the shelves? Perhaps she'd gone to Borgin and Burkes—he doubted she'd be able to get in, but with magic you could never be sure—or maybe she'd gone somewhere else, someplace that he hadn't accidentally stumbled upon and escaped by the skin of his teeth. Obviously, they would've had bookstores over there, but they wouldn't let a cat just take one of their books, would they?

It was an interesting mystery, certainly.

Still, questions and concerns about his new familiar aside, Harry's time in Diagon Alley had been going fairly well. But of course, all good things must come to an end eventually, and so too did Harry's good mood after about a week spent living in the Alley.

On that particular day, Harry had swung by Flourish and Blotts to pick up a new book, only to find the store swarmed with customers—parents and children coming to pick up their supplies for the oncoming year at Hogwarts, no doubt. Though he wasn't called in to work that day, Harry noticed the plight and decided to quickly step in to help out. Midnight, to his surprise, decided to linger on the counter beside him. Perhaps she found his situation amusing, or maybe she just really didn't want to accidentally get trampled in the rush of customers.

Whatever reason, Harry tried not too focus too much as he rang customers up and sent them back on their way. He had done a good job of it, too, and had helped to thin the crowd somewhat, when he heard a nasally, pompous voice drawl over the counter across from him—a voice he'd hoped not to hear until September.

"Well, what have we here? Are my eyes mistaking me, or is that Potter standing behind the counter?"

Harry cringed at the arrogant tone of the speaker and slowly turned to face him. Even as he did, he had to restrain himself from punching him in his cocky smirk, and merely let out a slow, steadying breath. "Hello, Malfoy."

The blonde ponce's sneer almost seemed to grow more annoying. "You know, I heard that you had gotten yourself into trouble again, Potter—something about blowing your aunt up because she did something to hurt your feelings?" He laughed. "Of course, I never expected it to be true! And now, seeing you stuck here in this store, doing this peasantry work, is just sad. You've really fallen far from glory, haven't you?"

Harry scowled but looked away, turning his attention to another customer that needed help. "You know, I really don't know. Why don't you ask your dear old daddy, I'm sure he could tell you a lot about how it feels to fall from grace, if he'd ever been there to begin with at all."

Once he was done helping the customer he'd been with, Harry turned back to Malfoy, and was very pleased to see his schoolyard bully's face screwed up into an angry red scowl. "Why you—how dare you talk of my father like that?"

"I can talk of your father however I like, Malfoy, seeing as he _did_ try to have several of my friends killed last year," Harry quickly shot back, his eyes narrowed—the Chamber of Secrets debacle still weighed heavily on his mind, and was just one more reason to hate Malfoy and his ilk, especially his father. "Anyways, how did you ever know about me blowing up my aunt?"

Malfoy sneered but stood up a bit straighter. "That's for me to know, Potter—my father's got a lot of friends in the Ministry, after all, and word of the boy-who-lived getting into trouble gets along very quickly."

"Terrific," Harry groaned, rolling his eyes. If what Malfoy said was true—which he doubted, but still—then he was not looking forward to whatever was awaiting him at Hogwarts once September rolled around. "Well, glad to know—but you should tell your dear old daddy that his gossip club needs to work a bit harder. I'm not actually in trouble, and I'm only here because I want to be."

There was a ringing from a register nearby, and Harry turned to walk away—off to help another customer. "Now then, if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot better things to do that listen to you lick your daddy's boots and try to harass me. Exit's out that way, if you would?"

Malfoy, however, was clearly not done trying to get a rise out of Harry, and his face grew red again as he was blown off so quickly. Glaring, he stomped forward, pushing his way past several of the customers and shoving his arm out over the counter to try and grab at Harry, to force him to pay attention to him. "Excuse me, Potter, but I didn't say we were done yet! You've got a lot of nerve, after all, speaking of my father like—arggh!"

Harry spun around quickly, before grinning as he saw Malfoy stumble back, grabbing at his hand. Four long and bright red scratches ran down the back of his hand, and it was clear to see the cause. Standing between Harry and Malfoy on the counter, her back arched and a vicious hiss leaping from her throat, was Midnight, the cat's paw still raised in the slapping scratch that had wounded Harry's rival. The cat hissed once more at the blond ponce, before mewing softly as she turned and padded over to Harry, bumping her head against his hand.

"Good kitty," Harry murmured, affectionately stroking behind Midnight's ears, causing the black cat to purr loudly.

Malfoy, however, was not so amused. "That little monster is yours, Potter?" he snarled, glaring at the cat before looking back up at Harry with a sneer. "When my father hears about this—"

"Oh, come off it, Malfoy!" Harry snapped, glaring at the ferret-faced boy across from him. "What's your daddy going to do, come and have my familiar sent to Azkaban for defending her master? Not only is that against wizarding law, but it would all make one hell of a story." Harry held his hand up in front of him as if pointing out the headline of a newspaper. "Local aristocrat has orphan boy's cat imprisoned for being a cat, more on page 5."

Malfoy glared at Harry and he stepped closer to him, even as Midnight turned back to him and began hissing again. "You don't know what my father's capable of, Potter."

Harry glared right back and leaned over the counter, Midnight nearly overshadowed by him. "Try me."

Before the conflict between the two boys could escalate any further, a tall, willowy-figured woman stepped through the crowd and laid a finely-manicured hand on Malfoy's shoulder. "Draco, dear, I hope you haven't been causing too much trouble again."

The blonde ponce flinched, and his face turned pink around his cheeks. "No, mother."

Harry blinked, then looked up at the woman behind Malfoy. So this was his rival's mother? He had to admit, she was quite a bit more attractive than he'd expected—a statuesque woman with sharp, angled beauty, and blonde hair only slightly darker than Malfoy's, which she wore in a tight bun behind her, giving her an appearance almost as severe as Professor McGonagall, but far more attractive to stare at.

The woman, who had released Malfoy's shoulder, turned to Harry and raised a single slender eyebrow. It seemed she'd noticed him staring. "So, I assume you're the 'Potter boy' my son has told me of, yes?"

Harry swallowed and nodded. "Uh, yes ma'am, that would be me. Harry Potter, I mean," he replied, stumbling through his words as he extended a hand to her. "And you're his mother then, Mrs. Malfoy?"

The woman nodded, a faint smirk slipping onto her face at his extended hand, which she took daintily. If he noticed her smirk, it was gone before he could really notice it. "Yes, I am. Narcissa Malfoy, if you please." She smiled at Harry then, before looking back at Malfoy and raising an eyebrow. "Draco dear, go ahead outside, I'll be out in a moment—" She then shot him a firm stare. "And don't think about telling your father anything from today, I'll not have you causing more trouble than is worth."

Malfoy seemed to look as though he wanted to argue, but one look from his mother was enough to make him take a step back and almost seem to shrink in on himself. "Yes, mother," the blonde boy finally sighed, shooting Harry one last scathing glare before turning and tramping out of the bookstore, shoving his way past some of the other shoppers.

Narcissa Malfoy watched him go and shook her head. Sighing, she looked back at Harry and gave him a small nod. "I apologize for my son…he looks up to his father in many ways and attempts to be like him at all times. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to recognize what are good traits of his father to idolize, and which are ones we'd rather not talk about."

Harry smiled at Narcissa's slightly dry tone, and he nodded in turn. "To be honest, I'm used to it from him. Besides, his threats are all mostly empty most of the time. But thank you anyway."

"Mmm, yes," Narcissa hummed, before frowning at Harry. "Though, I wouldn't be complacent with my son, if I were you. Like I said, he idolizes his father in many ways, and his ambition and understanding of the wizarding world are two of the best—dangerous weapons, too, if you're not careful. You might want to consider learning a bit more about your place in the world, too." She took a step back. "It would be sad, after all, if the one who conquered the Dark Lord had been brought down by as simple a thing as politics."

Harry blinked in surprise at Narcissa's suggestion, and he swallowed hard again. "I'll consider it, then, I suppose. Thank you, again, Mrs. Malfoy."

Narcissa nodded in return, and turned to go. However, she paused just a moment, her eyes catching on the black cat that was sitting right in front of Harry, almost protectively. The cat was staring right back at her, the iridescent violet eyes looking up into her own storm-grey. Those eyes had a certain weight of familiarity to them in that moment, but for all Narcissa could think, she couldn't recall why.

Shaking her head, the Malfoy matriarch turned and walked back out of the bookstore, leaving Harry and his cat to the rest of their day.

* * *

Not long after Narcissa left Flourish and Blotts, Midnight stood from the counter and hopped down to begin her wandering. She deftly dodged the forest of feet that filled the store's lobby and dashed further into the store down a nearby row of bookshelves, her eyes focused forward. There was a sharp gleam in her iridescent violet eyes, a gleam that had been present since she had heard her sister suggest that Harry learn his place in their world.

For as often as she and her sister had seen differently, Bellatrix agreed with her sister's suggestion. This was why she was here, after all, to help Harry become the most powerful wizard and master imaginable. It was a goal that she was dedicated to, and one with far more avenues to it than simply teaching him stronger magicks—something that Bellatrix was becoming ever more aware Harry wasn't so inclined towards, as she'd noticed after perhaps the dozenth time bringing one of the dark spell books over from the Cryptonomica.

Oh well, she had all the time in the world to get him interested in it.

Politics and nobility, however, were things that affected him even now. The world wouldn't be kind to him for having been raised in a poor situation, unaware of his own status, and the wizarding world in particular would be very unforgiving if he failed to live up to that status. The sooner that he began learning his role in Wizarding politics and began making sweeping efforts to live up to that role, the sooner he would be safe from others manipulations.

And, perhaps seeing the treacherous and cutthroat tactics of the other members of his social standing, it would be enough to take her suggestions seriously, and actually begin studying and harnessing the dark magicks that she knew would make him truly powerful. The cat smirked to herself for a moment, glad she'd chosen to keep all those books rather than send them back to the Cryptonomica. Sooner or later, he would start taking her seriously.

First, however, she would need to convince Harry to seriously learn his position in their world. As such, he needed to know exactly what that role was—he already knew of his role as 'the boy-who-lived' that the general populace had given him, but that role did not have the full weight of authority that learning of his nobility status did. And there was much more expected of him, and much more he could do, as someone of noble birth.

Smirking to herself, Midnight hopped up along a nearby bookshelf—one of the ones towards the back of the store, where the law and politics books were kept. She perused the book titles for just a brief moment, before placing a paw on one and knocking it off the shelf and onto the floor. She then hopped down and picked the book up—a slight difficulty as she was still a cat, but she managed—and made her way back to her master, dropping the book down onto the counter when he wasn't looking.

Harry blinked and turned back to Midnight in surprise. "Oh, Midnight, back so soon?" he asked, reaching out to gently rub behind her ear.

Midnight closed her eyes with a contented sign and a rumbling purring.

Harry smiled, then paused as he noticed the book that she was sitting on—she'd done this enough times that she knew he would know it was a book _she_ was bringing him, and not a part of a purchase that an absent-minded customer had left behind. Still, he was cautious as he reached out and placed his hand onto it. "And what have we here, girl—this isn't another one of your special spellbooks, is it?"

Midnight rolled her eyes. They had more than enough of those to last the next school year, once she managed to get him to warm up to the idea of actually using them. Instead of replying, though, the cat stepped off of the book and let out a soft mew of reply.

Harry raised an eyebrow, then turned his attention to the book's cover. Almost immediately, he laughed—a dry laugh, and he set the book back down and looked back to Midnight. "I'm guessing you agree with Mrs. Malfoy, then? I need to learn my place, whatever the hell that means?"

Midnight stepped closer and nudged the back of his hand with his head. Of course he should learn his place in the world—not only would it go a long way to ensuring that prats and ponces like her ferret-faced nephew were less inclined to bother or harass him, but it would also help him become even more powerful, and likely open up even more avenues for him in their world. Something that was great importance to her plans for him.

Harry sighed and gently rubbed his hand over her ears. "Alright then—once we get back home, this one, I'll read."

* * *

The next day, Harry found himself striding down the Alley towards the massive building that was the Gringotts Wizarding Bank. He was dressed as well as he could manage, though he tugged at the collar of his robes every once in a while—more an act of nerves than actual discomfort, though that was certainly there. He'd only actually been to Gringotts once before, and the memory of the goblins that worked there was not a happy one, and though he was a bit older than before, his nerves would not let up.

Of course, he couldn't really blame his nerves too much—what he was going to do was something he was unfamiliar with, and made him feel just a bit out of his depth. He had only learned of it last night, while reading the book that Midnight had brought to him. The book, as it were, had been about the wizarding houses that made up Wizarding Britain, and made him wonder what he didn't know about his own family.

The best chance to learn, it turned out, was to go to Gringotts and speak with his family's account manager. Likely, this would also involve an inheritance test, which Harry wasn't too bothered by—he was his parents' son, after all, and unless they had been completely disowned by their families, which seemed unlikely, he'd be able to pass the test and get into his family's vault. Still, just the thought of going to learn about his family, finally, was more than enough reason to be a bit anxious going into this.

However, the heavily armored goblins leering at him as he ascended the steps weren't helping him any.

Ignoring the piercing stares and shining swords as best as he could, Harry continued onward into the main lobby of the bank. It hadn't changed much from his first time entering, with several rows of goblins sitting at desks, peering over their ledgers and counting out coins and jewels on nearby scales. There were guards in here, as well, and Harry also noticed a few wizards moving around further into the bank, where the public wasn't allowed.

Though he was surprised by the human employees—he hadn't known Gringotts even employed wizards to begin with—Harry quickly turned his attention back to the tellers sitting at the desks. Stirring up his courage, he stood as tall as he could manage and walked past the guards and up to the first teller he could find. As he approached, the goblin looked up from his papers before shooting him a sneer and turning his gaze back to his work.

"What do you want, wizard?" the goblin asked in a harsh, grating tone.

Harry blinked at the sudden rude response, and he felt an instant desire to turn back. However, he frowned back at the goblin and cleared his throat, noting the goblin's name from his placard. "Well, Gricksnap," Harry replied, trying to keep his tone even, "I'm here to meet with my family's account manager—I don't have the key myself, so I have to go through him. If that is alright?"

The goblin, Gricksnap, frowned at Harry for a moment before nodding and stepping back. "Very well then, which account is this for?"

"Um…the Potters," Harry stated, his tone a bit surprised the Goblin didn't just know.

"Of course, the Potters," Gricksnap nodded, shuffling through some papers before seeming to find what he needed and stepping down from his desk. The golden gate that stood between the lobby and the rest of the bank swung back for a moment, and Gricksnap stepped around to sneer up at Harry. "Follow me, Mr. Potter."

Before Harry could reply, Gricksnap turned and began walking deeper into the bank, towards a nearby hallway. And, for as short as the goblin was, he was surprisingly fast, and Harry had to actually put some effort into keeping up with him. They passed the rest of the tellers, and entered a hallway with several rather official-looking office doors. Harry stared at the names over the doors in interest, before coming to a sudden halt before a door with the name 'Sharpclaw' on the placard.

"Right this way, Mr. Potter," Gricksnap stated with a grin, holding the door open for him.

"Uh, thank you, Gricksnap," Harry replied, before stepping in and letting the goblin close the door behind him.

While the rest of Gringotts was noticeably carved from pure white marble and adorned with golden fixtures, Sharpclaw's office appeared to be carved from obsidian, with the glossy black glass covering every tile of the floor and each wall. There was a large black table in the center of the room, behind which a large fire was roaring in a fireplace, giving the room a terrifying glow that was only slightly lessened by the torches on the walls. Above the fire were the mounted heads of three screeching griffons, made even more terrifying by the glow.

All of this added ambiance made the silhouette sitting in the chair behind the desk seem utterly demonic in nature. The goblin was taller than Gricksnap had been, with slightly darker grey skin and pale silver hair. The goblin's face twisted up into a toothy smirk at Harry's approach, and he clicked his claws on the desk's smooth surface.

"Well well, Mr. Potter…I must admit, I'm surprised to see you. Have a seat, why don't you?"

The goblin gestured to a nearby seat, one which Harry quickly took with a nod and a hard swallow. All his anxieties of getting into this meeting had come back in full force, and he was finding it hard to keep them at bay. "I, uh, I'm guessing that you're Sharpclaw?"

"Account Manager Sharpclaw, Mr. Potter," the goblin corrected sharply, though he continued grinning at the young wizard. "Part of goblin custom is to refer to those you work with by their titles, as it is a sign of respect."

The goblin frowned and leaned back in his seat, his clawed fingers once more clicking across the surface of his desk. "I'm only telling you this as you do not have your Magical Guardian here to tell you so, which is also why I'm surprised you're here. I was under the impression that you weren't to be brought here until the age of your majority, seventeen I believe it is for wizards? Why are you here now?"

Harry blinked and thought over what Sharpclaw had asked him. He, of course, was wondering over who this Magical Guardian was, and why they had decided he shouldn't meet with his account manager until he was seventeen, but he kept that to the back of his mind for the moment. He had plenty of questions to go over with his account manager, and finding out who this Magical Guardian was could wait until later.

Instead, he looked back up at Sharpclaw and replied. "Well, I've decided that it would be smart for me to learn a bit more about my family and what being a Potter entails. I haven't really heard much about my family from other people, and there aren't any books I can find that really explain in detail, so I figured I'd find what I could about my family history in the family vault."

Sharpclaw's grin widened into a wide gleam and he nodded. "A smart boy, then! Yes, learning of your family is a very shrewd decision indeed, especially at your age—this way you'll have a few years to prepare before you reach your majority. I agree with your thoughts, Mr. Potter—however, before you can do so, we do need to do a bit of a test to ensure you are who you claim to be."

Harry nodded, knowing where this was going. Sharpclaw smirked, then turned around for a moment to grab something. When he turned back, the goblin was holding a wickedly-shaped dagger with intricate runes along the blade, while in his other hand he held a small stone basin, also with several runes carved into the lip of the bowl. Smirking, the goblin set the bowl on the table between them, set the dagger down right beside the bowl, then lifted his grin back up to Harry.

"Well now, in order to ensure you are who you say, we shall be giving you the Inheritance Test," Sharpclaw clarified, raising an eyebrow. "I must admit, this process is a bit painful for those who come here—however, it is rather simple in concept. I shall simply carve a cut into your hand using this dagger, and you will bleed into this basin. The house symbols surrounding this basin will glow if you belong to any of them—white if you are simply a blood relative to that house, gold if you are the heir."

Harry nodded again, swallowing as he stared at the knife for a moment before extending his hand over the basin. "Alright then, let's get this over with."

Sharpclaw smirked and nodded in reply, taking ahold of Harry's arm by the wrist and holding him steady. The goblin took the odd dagger in his other hand holding the curved edge against his skin. Harry winced at the surprisingly cold metal as it pressed against his flesh—and then, in one sudden swipe, he felt a wave of heat over his hand. Blood began to course up from his palm, spilling through his fingers and into the basin. As soon as it had happened, Sharpclaw set the knife back down again and waved his hand over Harry's, the cut sealing up.

Taking his hand back, Harry gently rubbed over where the cut had been while he and Sharpclaw watched the basin with his blood. The runes around the lip of the basin began to glow red as the enchantments were activated, and the blood in the basin began to boil and writhe about as the magic weaved through it. Red electricity seemed to course through the blood, lighting up the room with bright flashes of red. Harry leaned back in surprise, while Sharpclaw leaned closer with an eager grin.

And then, the runes dimmed.

There was silence for a moment, the blood coming to a still stop in the basin. Harry blinked, swallowing hard with worry that maybe something had gone wrong. But, before he could voice these worries, the series of house symbols that surrounded the basin slowly began to glow. There were six house symbols that began to glow a bright white, and then, a moment later, two of them began glowing gold. However, to Harry's surprise, two of the unlit symbols began to glow gold as well.

"What, what does that mean?" Harry asked, staring between the basin and Sharpclaw.

Sharpclaw, however, did not reply just yet and took the basin back, banishing the blood from it before he slipped it back into his desk. Once he had, he drew a sheaf of parchment and began to scritch information out onto it with the quill he had sitting on his desk. "Well now, this is interesting…" he mused.

"Sorry, what's interesting?" Harry asked.

The goblin smirked and set his quill down, turning the parchment back to him. "What's interesting, Mr. Potter, is that according to the inheritance test, you are the heir of four different houses—only two of which, might I add, are of blood relations. Which means that you claimed the right to be heir of those houses by other means…quite interesting indeed…"

Harry blinked in surprise, before looking at the parchment before him. Sure enough, written out on the paper were two lists of names. The first were of blood relations, houses that he was related to by blood. The names Potter, Black, Bones, Prewett, Diggory, and Gryffindor were all listed under blood relations. However, the second list—the list for heirs—included several surprising names. Potter was to be expected, but Black, Slytherin, and Lestrange came at an utter shock.

"Uh, how am I heir to these houses?" Harry asked, looking back up at Sharpclaw. "I get Potter, I'm the last living member as far as I know, but the rest don't make any sense."

Sharpclaw frowned and bent over to pull out a large tome. Setting it on the table, the goblin flipped through the book for a few minutes. "Well now…I do not have an explanation for why Black is a house you are heir of—Sirius Black is the head of that house, so it would be odd for you to be listed as his heir—"

Harry stared in shock. A well-known murderer and escaped convict had made him his heir? It had to be a mistake, certainly—but, considering that the goblin whose sole job was to ensure that people didn't get their accounts mixed up hadn't said anything, it must not have been a mistake to him. Which left a large question as to why Sirius Black had made him his heir.

"—but both Slytherin and Lestrange I can explain," Sharpclaw continued. "Slytherin seems to have several prerequisites that someone must pass before becoming the heir of the house. First is that they must be a parselmouth, second they must be pureblood, and third they must have…" Sharpclaw paused. "…opened the Chamber of Secrets and conquered the beast that dwells within."

Harry frowned mentally ticked the prerequisites off. "Well…all of those are true…aside from the pureblood part, though…"

Sharpclaw frowned and looked back at his tome. "Not according to Slytherin's understanding of blood status—to his house, someone was pureblood so long as both their parents were magic users. And, as I'm sure you already know, both your parents were magic users. So, by Slytherin's own ruling, you are pureblood." He glanced back up at Harry. "What I'm interested in is the Chamber of Secrets deal here at the end."

"Oh, well, last year the Chamber of Secrets was opened at Hogwarts," Harry explained, "A few friends of mine were attacked by the monster that dwells in the Chamber—a basilisk—so I went down to face it and save my friends. It was rough, and if it weren't for the Headmaster's phoenix coming to help, and it bringing the Sword of Gryffindor with it, I probably would've died."

Sharpclaw stared in surprise, clicking his claws on the surface of his desk. "So, you mean to tell me that you, at the age of fourteen, faced down a _basilisk_, and won, with little more than a sword and a phoenix to assist you?" The goblin's face split into a grin and he folded his hands on the desk. "Mr. Potter, it seems you are indeed quite more interesting than I was first expecting…"

"Uh…thank you…" Harry managed, shifting a bit under the goblin's smirk. "So, uh…what about the Lestranges?"

Sharpclaw frowned and glanced back at the book again. "Well, this is the odd one…there are no prerequisites, no rules for why someone would be made heir of the house. The only reason they would be listed as such is if they were literally the son or daughter of the Lestranges—which, you clearly aren't—if you were adopted by the family, or if you were placed into a marriage contract with the heir. As you are of a higher-status house, you would claim the title of heir from your betrothed upon marriage."

Sharpclaw looked back up at Harry and clicked his claws once more. "However, as far as I know, none of these apply to you, yet one must as the ritual is never wrong."

Harry sat back in his seat, his head spinning from Sharpclaw's explanations. He had hoped that the goblin would have a better answer for him, but as it were there were now two criminals and prison escapees that had apparently made him their heirs for reasons that neither he nor Sharpclaw knew of. Considering the situation, it was more than a little worrying, to say the least.

The goblin, however, didn't seem too off-put by the strange circumstances—if anything, he seemed excited and intrigued by the mystery before them. However, they still had some business to finish. "Well, with that settled, Mr. Potter," Sharpclaw stated, putting the tome away and pulling out a golden key, "here is the key to your family vault, and I will speak with the account managers of your other houses to get you the keys for those."

Nodding, Harry took the key and slipped it into his bag, already nervous for the next trip to Gringotts. "Thank you, Account Manager Sharpclaw—I'll go now, to see the vault." He then turned to go, but then paused and glanced back at Sharpclaw. "But, first…I meant to ask you before…who is my Magical Guardian?"

Sharpclaw looked up at Harry in surprise, before his face split into another wide, devilish grin. "Why, Mr. Potter, I'm surprised you did not know already—he's had several chances to tell you already, so I don't understand why he wouldn't tell you…but, if you must know, your Magical Guardian is Albus Dumbledore."


	3. Chap 3: Reunion

**Hello every—WHAT THE FUCK?! How long have I been gone? I'm sorry, y'all, I've really got no good explanation for why I've been gone for so long. Part of it was because I hit a real bad writer's block with this chapter****—and with writing in general****—for a while there, part of it was because of school starting up, and part of it was because my sisters got me hooked on Hollow Knight and Minecraft again, so that ate up pretty much all of my time. But, I've finished both of those, and school is in a good enough position that I can confidently come back to doing this again.**

**...no promises on how long I'll be back, though...**

**Anyways, this chapter was a real tough one. I had a lot of ways I could've had this go, and I'll be honest in saying I'm not 100% sold on how this one goes****—but, I like it enough that I'm good with posting it. Besides that, I've gotta start making up for lost time. So! With that being said, let's get on with His Loyal Pet!**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Reunion**

Harry walked out of Gringotts in a bit of a daze, his mind whirling over the revelations and information that Sharpclaw had provided him with. He ended up returning to his room at the Leaky Cauldron—only slightly bothered by the piercing glare his two familiars were still exchanging—and plopped down onto his bed, where he stayed for the rest of the day.

Of the things that he was wondering over, the results of his inheritance test and the accounts that came with it were actually on the lower end of his concerns. Certainly, having two extremely well known criminals and prison escapees also making him their heir for some reason was a bit worrying, but Sharpclaw had promised Harry that he would spend some time trying to get to the bottom of it, and that he would send an owl his way should he ever come up with anything, which helped to put Harry at ease.

As for the rest of the inheritance test, there wasn't much he could do just yet. Though he was the heir of all four houses, he couldn't claim lordship over any of them until he was an adult—around eighteen or nineteen, according to the Wizarding World. And, since he was only an heir, he couldn't access the Black or Lestrange vaults—they were locked by the heads of both houses, Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange. The only vaults that weren't locked were the Potter and Slytherin vaults, and of the two, Slytherin was barren, the funds wasted by the previous owner.

The Potter family vault, however, was more than well filled. Sharpclaw was an exceptional account manager, keeping a good handle on all of the family's affairs and finances, and as a result the Potter family vault was gleaming with neatly stacked piles of gold and silver—a hearty sum that greatly filled the gap the previous Potters had made with their funding of the war against Voldemort, and more than enough to last Harry well into his thirties without need of work.

And, after further discussion with Sharpclaw of his fight with the Basilisk earlier that year, it sounded as though those piles of gold were only going to increase in size from here.

What Harry had most been interested in, though, was knowledge about his family—and while the piles of gold only told him they were fairly well-off and had supported the war against Voldemort, it was the small library deeper within the vault that truly caught his attention. Tome after tome of family history and family magicks—dating back all the way to when the Roman Empire first arrived on the British isles—lined the shelves of this small book sanctuary. Some were dusty and old, others as fresh as the day they'd been placed within the vault, and Harry wanted to read all of them.

In the end, Sharpclaw suggested that Harry only take a few of the tomes out, and once he was done with them he could come back for more. Harry agreed, and ended up leaving with the first book of the family's history—an old and worn book with yellowed pages and a rough leather binding—along with the latest volume with the most up-to-date information on the family's dealings, and finally a treasure that he hadn't been expecting to find—

A journal written by one James C. Potter.

This, of course, was the book he most wanted to read. Harry hungered for a chance to get to know his father, know who he was outside of off-handed sort of praise he got from teachers and the constant vitriol that Snape spewed, and this offered him that chance. He could read his father's own words, hear what he thought and what he dreamed of, and learn what kind of man he'd really been.

And yet…Harry had taken a while before he actually sat down and read the journal. Until he was ready, his mind was still spinning, still whirling from the other revelation Sharpclaw had given him.

Dumbledore was his guardian. Maybe not in the muggle sort of way, but certainly enough that he could've done something more for Harry in his past. It stirred up so many questions in Harry's mind, questions that he begged to have answered. Did he know about how he was being treated at the Dursleys? Did he know, and yet continue to let it happen to him? Why didn't he ever talk to him about it—he'd been attending the man's school for two years now, and yet in all the times he'd been in the same room as him, why had Dumbledore never mentioned him being Harry's Magical Guardian? Why had it taken him meeting with his family's account manager for him to find out the truth?

All these questions had bounced around Harry's mind from the minute he left Gringotts, right until he arrived at his apartment and dropped onto his bed in a tired and frustrated heap. He wanted answers, but he didn't know where he could get them, and in a way he was too afraid of what they might be. He closed his eyes and rolled onto his back, just wishing that all this trouble would go away.

He was eventually roused from his thoughts by the feeling of something soft rubbing up against his side, as well as against his head. Harry blinked his eyes open and glanced around. At his side was Midnight, the black cat gently nuzzling and purring against his chest, her iridescent violet eyes looking up at him with what he could only assume was worry. And by his head, her beak gently nipping and preening his hair, was Hedwig, the white owl clucking softly and soothingly into his ear.

It seemed the two had finally found a reason to set their disagreements on hold.

A tired smile slipped onto Harry's face, and he slowly sat up, his hands reaching out to rub behind Midnight's ears and stroke along Hedwig's chest feathers. "Sorry girls," he sighed, looking blankly down at the bed for a moment. "Just…a lot to take in, you know…a lot of questions…"

The two familiars seemed to share a look for a moment—which was odd, because the only times they ever shared a look was whenever they were plotting to murder each other. After having a silent discussion that Harry was not privy to beyond looking back and forth between them and trying to discern what they were saying to each other, the two familiars suddenly leaped off the bed and dashed and flew over to the desk. Harry watched as they sat on the desk, staring piercingly back at him.

Harry blinked, before standing and walking back over to his desk. As he approached, Midnight turned and pulled a page of parchment out of the stack he had set out, while Hedwig picked up one of his quills with her beak and dropped it down onto the paper. Then, together, the two familiars looked back up at Harry.

"…you two think I should send a letter to him, I'm guessing?" Harry asked, stepping closer. He frowned—if the Headmaster hadn't told him about being his Magical Guardian when he was literally sitting at the foot of his bed in the infirmary and comforting him after the terrors of trying to protect the Philosopher's Stone, he doubted that he would get any answers through a letter by owl.

Still, the piercing stare from his two familiars made Harry question if maybe he should just go and write the letter just so that they would leave him be for the rest of the day. With that thought in mind, Harry quickly slipped into the chair at the desk, picked up the quill that Hedwig had dropped for him, and pulled out a fresh bottle of ink. Then, under the watchful gaze of the cat and the owl, Harry scrawled out a quick letter for his headmaster.

He barely had time to sign and seal the letter before Hedwig suddenly pounced on it—clearly, she wasn't giving him a chance to change his mind on the matter—and began flapping her wings in earnest, flying up to the ceiling and around the room in a high loop. At the same time, Midnight dashed off of the desk and over to the window—apparently the cleaning lady had closed it—and clawed at the latch, causing the window to open. And with a sudden flap of her wings, Hedwig was off, flying out into the London sky with Harry's letter clutched firmly in her talons.

Harry sat back in surprise—that was the first time he'd ever seen his familiars get along, and they'd certainly never worked together that well before. It was more than a little stunning, to be frank.

After a moment, Midnight turned away from the window and looked back at Harry, her violet eyes gleaming, and then bounded over onto the bed, where she dropped down into a loaf right beside his father's journal. Sighing, Harry stood from the desk and moved over to sit beside his cat, the black ball quickly curling up against him as he picked up his book and began reading.

All he could hope was that his letter would get an answer.

* * *

As it turned out, it did.

While it did come with some disappointments, Hedwig ended up returning with a letter from Dumbledore the very next morning. The letter didn't give any answers to Harry's questions, but Dumbledore suggested that they meet after the start of term feast once Harry got to Hogwarts. Once there, he would be more than happy to answer all the questions Harry had. Harry found this a bit questionable, ironically, but he was still hopeful to get some explanation at the very least.

And so, Harry continued counting down the days until the start of term. For the next three weeks, Harry spent his days on about the same sort of routine—helping out around the alley at his different jobs, keeping his familiars from killing each other as it seemed their tenuous truce had come to an end once his letter had been sent, and reading from his father's journal. And of the three, it was the last one that really kept his attention.

As it turned out, the journal he'd grabbed was the most recent in a series that went back to his father's first year in Hogwarts. As such, the pages within were filled with James' thoughts on the war. It was filled with dry, black humor—humor Harry himself resonated with—as James had struggled to push through the pain of the war while keeping a smile on his face, for himself and his family.

And as for his family, James' words took Harry's breath away. He'd heard a few things about his father since rejoining the magical world, but in reading his words it became so clear how loving his father was, and how much he loved both him and his mother, Lily. Whenever the pages weren't filled with exploits from the war, James' writing was filled with messages about how little Harry had caused the family cat to dash around the house as he chased after it, or how Lily had been so nurturing after that bad mission, and how he wished she wasn't locked in this war like he was.

…or at the very least, Harry assumed the journal was talking about Lily. It was hard to tell—James had an odd thing about his writing, where he only seemed to refer to people by the nicknames he gave them. He could infer that Lilyflower meant Lily, his mother, and that Greybeard was referring to Dumbledore, just from how James mentioned the names.

But then there was the question of the other names that popped up almost more often than Lilyflower—Padfoot, and Moony, and Wormtail. The names came up almost every other page, sometimes reminiscing about past exploits at Hogwarts, and sometimes worrying over what they'd gone through in their most recent mission. There was a fondness in how James referred to them, and it made Harry very curious. Who were they? His friends from school? Did Harry know any of them already?

Unfortunately, those questions would remain unanswered for the moment.

And so, for the rest of the summer, Harry kept to his schedule of working in the alley, studying his textbooks, and trying to crack the secrets of his father's journal. Before he even knew it, the last week of the break rolled around, and on the morning before September 1st—the day he would be heading out to board the Hogwarts Express—Harry was awoken by a loud clambering, clattering of voices down in the pub below.

"For the last time, Hermione, keep that thing away from Scabbers!"

"Ron, just because he's a cat doesn't mean he's going to hurt your rat, he's just being friendly…"

Harry grinned at the voices, and quickly scrambled to his feet, dressing quickly before rushing out his door to the pub below. Sure enough, just as he rounded the corner of the stairs, he saw two familiar figures—a young woman with curly dark brown hair holding a large and slightly squashed looking orange cat, and a lanky young man with fiery orange hair holding a musky old rat protectively to his chest.

"I don't care how friendly he's being, cats kill rats, so I'm not letting him anywhere near Scabbers!" Ron firmly stated, frowning over at their friend of the past two years.

Hermione looked as though she was about to throw yet another of her legendary lectures to the brightly haired boy, before Harry spoke up from the top of the stairs. "To be fair, Ron, Scabbers doesn't seem like the most appetizing choice—I'm sure Hermione can keep her cat fed by other means than a decade-old rat."

The two of them seemed to leap slightly at his voice, and Hermione's face spread into a warm smile as she looked up the stairs to him. "Harry!" she shouted out, letting her cat down onto a nearby table and rushing up the stairs to give him a firm hug, her body slamming into his and nearly knocking him off his feet. "It's so good to see you! I'd heard that you were staying here for the summer from the Daily Prophet and from some friends, but still! How've you been?"

Ron took a moment to give the cat a mean stink eye before joining Hermione on the stair's steps and giving Harry a lopsided grin. "Seriously, mate, real good to see you."

"You too, both of you," Harry replied, returning his grin with one of his own. "Seems like we've all had some crazy summer months."

The two friends nodded. He of course knew of Ron's trip to Egypt—it had been in the Prophet, after all, and Ron had sent dozens of letters to Harry describing the different things they saw while there. It certainly paid off having an older brother who was a certified Curse Breaker and could freely guide them through the ancient magical ruins. Hermione, meanwhile, had sent numerous letters during her family's trip to France—and, by the glowing look of her skin, it looked as though she'd found some time to visit the beaches there, as well.

That thought, of course, came with a few mental images that Harry quickly tried to banish before his blush could betray him.

Thankfully, before anyone could say anything else, there was a questioning 'mrow?' from beside him, and Hermione looked up in surprise. "Oh, Harry—is that yours?"

Harry glanced to the side, where upon the banister Midnight had quietly perched herself, the black cat staring at the reunited trio with questioning violet eyes. Harry grinned, and reached out to gently stroke his familiar's ears, making her 'mrow' with a more affectionate, purring timbre to her sounds.

"Yeah, actually—that's part of the craziness of my summer," he replied, looking back at Hermione and Ron with a grin. "I found her the night I blew up my Aunt Marge, and decided to make her one of my familiars. Her name's Midnight."

"Oh, not you too, mate!" Ron huffed, pulling Scabbers closer to his chest. As he did, Midnight's eyes gleamed, and she seemed to perk up a bit, her tail fluffing and the hairs along her spine starting to stand on end.

Harry, assuming this reaction was because of Ron's attitude, turned to Ron and shook his head. "Relax Ron, Midnight's not interested in Scabbers—she's more of a fish-eater anyway, and even if she wasn't, like I said before no cat would be interested in as dusty a rat as yours."

Ron seemed to ease up a bit after that, his shoulders loosening slightly as he slipped a lopsided grin onto his face at Harry's words. "He is an old rat, isn't he?" he murmured, looking down at the rat that seemed to be curling in on itself a bit. "He's just been in my family so long, I don't want to lose him because my friends got cats now."

"Ron, before I had Midnight, I had Hedwig, and you were never bothered by her," Harry replied flatly.

"Fair point," Ron conceded, his ears turning a bit red at his own embarrassment. Hermione, beside him, just laughed softly, before turning and leading the three of them down to the table where her cat, Crookshanks, was still lounging, and the three of them dove a bit deeper into their discussion of the summer break. As they did, Harry's smile continued to grow, a certain feeling of comfort resting over him at last.

Midnight, however, kept her gaze firmly on the rat in Ron's hands.

* * *

So, _he_ was here, was he?

Midnight's eyes narrowed, and her tail twitched. She of course knew exactly who that rat was, though luckily enough he didn't know about her secret in turn. Which would explain why the rat only seemed a bit nervous about a sleek black cat staring imperiously over at it, rather than frantically terrified of the fact that said cat was also the same witch that he had been very much terrified of for many years.

Bellatrix had never liked Peter Pettigrew—even before he'd joined the Death Eaters, he'd be a sniveling coward, the likes of which utterly disgusted her. However, as far as Death Eaters go, he was still rather useful for her m—her _former_ master—especially once it was revealed who the prophecy Snape had overheard was referring to. A simple confundus charm was all it had taken to turn the heads of all involved in that little scheme to keep Harry and Neville safe and sound, and that safety came crashing down.

Now, however, Bellatrix's loyalties had changed. Her duty was to her new master, and in keeping him safe. And that included from the sniveling little rat that would no doubt try something once given the chance…though, with how the redheaded child was holding him so closely to his chest, it looked as though, for the moment, he wouldn't really have that much of a chance to do anything.

Still, for now, Bellatrix would watch, and wait.

* * *

"You're joking!"

Harry shook his head, even as Ron stared dumbfoundedly over at him. After some internal debating, Harry had decided to reveal the discoveries he'd made since arriving in the alley, including his inheritance test—though, not until they'd all boarded the Ministry vehicles headed to Kings Cross station. He'd been worried how Ron might handle it, but a need for a better perspective from the friends that had stuck with him even after his reveal to be a parseltongue overruled his other worries.

Ron let his jaw drop, before snapping it shut with an audible click. "Bloody hell, Harry! I mean, Merlin! You're actually…"

Harry and Hermione watched as their friend struggled to articulate the sheer shock that was running through him, before he finally gave up and slumped back. "Four Houses? You're the heir to four Houses?!"

"Do you mind saying that a bit louder, Ron? Don't think the other half of London heard you yet," Harry dryly replied, a tired frown on his face. He was glad they were in the privacy of the car, he didn't want too many people knowing just yet.

Ron's ears pinked a bit, and he ducked his head down. "Sorry, mate, it's just…it's just crazy, you know?"

"I think Harry understands just how crazy it is, Ron, it's his life after all," Hermione insightfully suggested, looking back to Harry with a concerned gaze. "And the goblins don't know why you have so many inheritances?"

"For Black and Lestrange, no," Harry sighed, leaning back in his seat, reaching over to gently stroke Midnight's ears as the familiar moved over to curl up in his lap. "Sharpclaw's looking into it, though, so I'm not too worried about it. Still…it's a lot to take in."

"Lot of responsibility, too," Ron muttered. Looking back up at Harry and Hermione, he added, "I mean, supposing that it's not a mistake, it means you've gotta be House head for four Houses. That's a lot of work for one bloke…though, I guess the gold's worth it."

"If there's any gold at all—Slytherin House has nothing, after all," Harry pointed out.

"And I really don't think gold's worth the trouble Harry will be in with all of this," Hermione muttered, before looking back up at Harry and giving him a hard stare. "Assuming this isn't some trap by Black or Lestrange—from what I've heard, they were very dangerous Death Eaters, some of the most notorious of You-Know-Who's followers, so putting you as their heir could be an attempt to finish the job."

Ron noticeably swallowed at that suggestion. "Oh…I hadn't thought of that."

Harry smiled and shrugged. "Well, luckily Sharpclaw did, and as far as he can tell, they're genuine inheritances—and you can't claim someone your heir unless you really intend to go through with it." He looked to Hermione. "That's what he told me, at least. Must be some kind of magic in the ceremony of it."

"I see," Hermione nodded, her mind already spinning as she began to process this new information. "Well, that's something else for us to look into with this matter…I'm guessing you've been studying some of wizarding customs to know what you'll be expected to do with these responsibilities once you do claim them as your lordships, yes?"

Harry paused and shook his head. "Actually, I, uh…kind of have been putting it off for a bit."

Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes, giving him a bit firmer smile now. "Well, I guess that's another thing I'll be doing during this school year—helping you find the right texts and getting you to learn what you'll need to know." At the surprised looks from Harry and Ron, she added, "Oh, don't be so surprised—I have a few books I got when I first learned I was a witch, I wanted to be as prepared for the wizarding world as I could be, but too much of it was about parts of the wizarding world that didn't really affect me directly."

"How convenient," Ron replied, rolling his eyes, before smirking at Harry. "I guess I could help too—I remember a bit of the training Dad gave Bill a few years back, so that could help some. We can even run it by him, too."

A relieved smile slipped onto Harry's face as he heard the words of support and help from his friends, a bit of a weight dropping from his shoulders that had been there for a while now. There was no secret that he was anxious revealing this to his friends—Ron had his jealous tendencies, and Hermione would sometimes be a bit overbearing, but in the end they were still his friends…and the fact that they were willing to help him made the anxieties he'd been feeling ease up just enough to make him smile.

"Thanks," he muttered, shaking his head. "I think I'd go crazy going through this on my own. I was a bit worried you'd be bothered by it, actually."

Hermione blinked, and reached over to place her hand on his shoulder. "Harry, we've faced some terrible things the past two years. Something as simple as your inheritance test and all the questions that come with it isn't going to scare us off—we're here for you, right Ron?"

Ron nodded quickly, and another relieved sigh escaped Harry's lips, his body sagging back against the car's seat, Midnight stretching out on his chest as he did so. He smiled and closed his eyes, his fingers returning to slowly scratch and pet behind the black cat's ears, filling the car with a soft purring sound, joining with the humming of the engine. "I guess that's a good point," he replied with a grin.

There was silence for a moment, then Ron snickered and spoke up. "Still, can't believe that even after all of last year, you actually turned out to be the Heir of Slytherin!"

The silence broke, and the three teenagers all broke into laughter at the ridiculousness of it. Midnight leaped off of her master and hunkered down the back of the car's seat behind him as he sat back up and smirked back at Ron. "Well, to be fair, I wasn't the heir until I passed Slytherin's test, and that didn't happen until after the year was over. By the way, you guys should hear some of the requirements for those Houses, because a few of them were really strange—"

The trio were cut off by the sudden slamming of the brakes, jostling them in their seats and hurtling Midnight over the edge with a surprised yowl. The driver, a knob-nosed man in auror robes, looked around the edge of his seat to the three students behind him and nodded to his window, where the entrance of King's Cross Station stood waiting for them.

"Alright, here we are—let's move now, train departs in fifteen minutes."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all nodded to the auror driver and maneuvered their way out of the car, stepping out the same time as Fred, George, Percy, Ginny, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley stepped out of their Ministry-authorized town cars. The large mass of redheads gathered the luggage they'd need for the year ahead of them, Mr. Weasley taking a beat to thank the aurors for their service in bringing them to the station, and like that they were off, bustling to the trolleys and then down the way towards Platform 9 ¾'s.

As usual, the crowd of wizards and witches got more than a few idle glances—from the cats and owls in cages, to the strangely colored clothes and the way Mr. Weasley would eagerly look around in interest and point out how things had changed since last year—but they ignored it, mostly. Harry did wonder why there wasn't some spell they could cast to make it so they weren't noticed by the crowd, but ignored it in favor of taking a hurried rush at the barrier into the platform.

Here, though, there were a few differences as well. Aurors, like the ones that had driven them to the station, were standing on each entry point for the scarlet engine, standing solidly like royal guards. Harry cast them a warry gaze as they passed a few by, before turning away and following the rest of the Weasleys down the platform towards the end of the train.

Or, at least he tried to—but, between the large crowd, and his distractions, he ended up accidentally knocking down one of the aurors on the platform. Harry's eyes widened with shock, and he leaped back, letting go of his trolley as he dropped to try and help the auror up to their feet. "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there!"

"Ack, it's fine, it's fine, happens all the time," the auror replied, taking Harry's hand as she pulled herself up. The auror—a young woman who couldn't be more than a few years older than Harry—shook herself and ran a hand through her wild pink hair. As she did, Harry took stock of the rest of her dress, and noticed that, while she was wearing the red robe of an auror, the rest of her attire was rather muggle in appearance, and with a very noticeable punk aesthetic to it.

"Always a chance I might go and make a bollocks out of it…anywho!" she exclaimed, whirling back to Harry with a smirk. "Thank you for the hand, mate—I'm Tonks, _just Tonks_, and I'm one of the aurors assigned to the Hogwarts Express today."

"Assigned to the Hogwarts Express?" Harry repeated, raising an eyebrow. Over in his trolley, Midnight turned around seemingly at the sound of the auror's name, her violet eyes narrowing and tail flicking in interest.

"Oh yeah," Tonks replied, nodding quickly. "With both Black and Lestrange out and about, the Ministry decided to send some aurors as a bit of additional protection at Hogwarts this year. That also means we'll be on the train, too, just in case we run into any trouble on the way. So, if you have any trouble—Black, Lestrange, or otherwise—give us a call, Brighteyes."

Harry blinked in confusion—a lot of what she'd said was taking him a bit to process, but it was that last bit he decided to speak up about. "Brighteyes?"

"Well, yeah," Tonks replied with a shrug. "It's better than just calling you glasses. Besides, you've got really nice eyes." For a moment, the auror seemed to go a bit distant, as if recalling some long forgotten memory. "They actually look a lot like…"

"AUROR TONKS!"

Harry and Tonks snapped to attention as a gruff voice called out over the clamoring of the crowd. Parting the crowd like Moses with the Red Sea, an old and grizzled auror half-marched-half-limped over to Tonks and frowned. "We're not here to make small talk, Auror Tonks, we're here to keep an eye on the crowds and keep trouble from happening. Remember, rule number one, Tonks—CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Tonks nodded quickly, and for a moment Harry swore he saw her hair shift to orange, before blinking and seeing it back to pink again. "Got it, Mad-Eye, I'll go back to boring crowd-watching."

"See that you do!" the older auror huffed in reply, smacking the butt of his walking cane hard on the floor, before turning to Harry. As he did, Harry noticed that the man's left eye was a bit…larger, and more wild than the other one. "And as for you, Mr. Potter, I believe you'll find the Weasley brood in that direction, still wondering where you're at."

The older auror pointed off in some direction, and Harry quickly turned and hurried off down the platform, even as Tonks' hair suddenly flashed a bright surprised yellow. "Wait, Mad-Eye, that was—" he heard her start, before she was drowned out by distance and the rest of the platform. Harry sighed and shook his head at that—he wasn't a fan of people recognizing him and rushing him with questions, getting well past his personal bubble to talk to him. At least the old man had treated him roughly normally even though he recognized him.

Then again, he'd seemed a bit…off, too.

True to the older auror's claims, the Weasleys were all standing near the end of the train, waiting expectantly. "Where have you been?" Mrs. Weasley began, but Harry just shrugged and hurried past her to join Ron and Hermione. Once everyone was sorted out, the family and friends said their goodbyes and quickly rushed onto the train, just as the train whistle began to squeal out.

Fred and George peeled off quickly to find Lee Jordan and Angelina, and Percy had disappeared before even them to get to wherever the prefects were staying for the ride. Ginny, too, disappeared quickly, waving excitedly to a nearby blonde and running over to join her in her compartment. That left just Harry, Ron, Hermione, and their familiars to find a compartment for themselves—that, however, turned out to be much more difficult than they'd expected, as much of the train was rather full already.

"This looks like it's the only mostly empty one," Ron sighed, gesturing to one that had a man fast asleep on one of the seats.

"It's better than nothing," Harry replied with a shrug, before walking into the compartment and moving his luggage into the overhead rack. "Hope he doesn't mind us sharing the compartment with him, whoever he is…"

"One R. J. Lupin, according to his luggage," Hermione pointed out, looking up into the luggage rack as well. "Do you suppose he's one of the other aurors on the train?"

"If so, then he's doing a lousy job at it," Ron chuckled, before plopping down on the far side of the compartment, with Harry and Hermione sitting down across from him, their cats in their laps. "Besides, he doesn't have an auror robe."

Harry nodded at Ron's assessment, looking over the man's haggard appearance. His clothes were a bit more threadbare, now that he was taking a closer look at them, but a red robe—even a patchwork one from a seasoned auror—was nowhere to be seen. Still, the man didn't seem to waken when they sat down in the compartment, so he turned his attention away from 'R. J. Lupin' and back to his friends as they enjoyed the trip to Hogwarts.

Of course, that enjoyment only lasted so long.

A few hours into the ride—as Hermione reclined and read from one of her textbooks and Harry from his father's journal, and Ron messed about with some of the sweets they'd bought from the trolley witch—the nice, quietness of the ride was instantly interrupted as the train came to a sudden and surprising halt. Once more, the three friends were jostled in their seats, though somehow the man on his didn't seem to wake in any way.

"What the bloody hell?" Ron cursed, standing up and walking to the window. "What's going on out there?"

As if in response, Tonks suddenly swung the door of their compartment open, the playful expression from back at the platform now replaced by one of cold focus. "All of you, stay in your compartment—we're figuring this out!" And with that, she dashed off, sliding the door almost shut behind her. Harry stood and leaned out, watching her go and shout the same warning to other students, before sitting back down.

"Do you think it's…y'know, _them_?" Hermione asked, a tone of fear lacing through her words. By the window, Ron swallowed hard.

"I don't think so…" Harry murmured, stepping back from the door a bit. "But if it is, hopefully the aurors find them before they find—"

And that was when they felt it. Ron felt it first, by the window, and he let out a surprised squeak that made Harry and Hermione whip around to look. The glass on the window had begun to slowly frost and freeze over. As it did, a shadow outside past by the window, and the compartment itself was filled with a sudden thick cold. Harry shivered, taking a step back towards the door as he did…and then freezing as he noticed a similar sensation happening outside their compartment door.

At his side, Midnight's back arched up as she began to hiss violently.

Before anyone could do anything, the compartment door swung open, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione were suddenly filled with a wave of dread. Standing—or perhaps floating—before them in the open doorway was a tall and lanky specter, cloaked in a tenebrous shroud. The being—whatever it was, seemed to look around the compartment slowly, and Harry shivered terribly as he felt its unseen gaze drop to him.

And then, suddenly, he felt cold. Distantly, he could feel himself beginning to drop to the floor, but more than anything else, he felt cold, and in pain. So much pain, and fear…and sadness. Distantly, behind him, he felt more than heard some quickly stand to their feet, and send out a sudden wave of bright light. More, though, he felt something soft and warm land on his chest, heard a sharp hissing sound accompanying a scared, sharp scream.

And then, there was nothing.


	4. Chap 4: Hogwarts

**Guess who got his muse back?**

**Well, for now at least. Hello everyone, I am the Lonely Lorekeeper, and I am here again with another new chapter of His Loyal Pet. I have finally found a way to work through my funk and start writing again, and as such have managed to pull this beauty together, which is probably my longest chapter yet! I've made it my new goal to write at least 1,000 words a day, that way I'm writing at least something. So far, since setting this goal for myself, I've averaged about 2,000 words a day. So, I may have another chapter sooner than I figured!**

**Also, just a little note to some of my readers. First, I've decided not to put too much bashing in this story. I'm usually a fan of it in other fics, but for the purposes of my story, I've decided that Harry will still get along well with Ron, at least for now. The plan for him isn't fully set in stone. What is set in stone is that Dumbledore is a good man but who has made mistakes. After being a part of the RWBY fandom and seeing how many fans are utterly thrashing Ozpin for no good reason, I've decided to dig my feet in and give this story a good, but flawed, Dumbledore.**

**And another thing, the pace will pick up here soon—this isn't going to be a play-by-play retelling of Book 3, nor is it going to stick wholly to the canon series of events. Right now, it's moving at about the same speed, but that's just for now. The next few chapters, I intend to be Harry's first few days at Hogwarts and the classes he's taking, and then we can really start picking up speed for the story.**

**But that's still a good ways away. For now, please enjoy Chapter 4 of His Loyal Pet.**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Hogwarts**

_Warm. That was what first came to his mind as he slowly began to find himself again. There was a warmth here, different from the sudden cold that had completely overwhelmed him in the train compartment. Warmth, and a comforting embrace that eased the stinging pain in his head. Warmth, that felt so good, he let himself sink deeper into the warmth surrounding him—down into softness of whatever he was laying on, which felt softer than any pillow or bed he'd laid in before._

_That is, until a contented sigh reached his ears. A sigh that he did not make._

_Harry's eyes slowly blinked open. At first, he'd thought he'd gone blind—everywhere around him was white and misty—but as his gaze shifted slightly, he noticed a stretch of pale alabaster skin, soft and smooth, reaching down to long legs, one of which was wrapped around his waist. Harry blinked, and slowly pulled back—the pillows, he now realized with a bright blush, were actually the very voluptuous chest of a strikingly beautiful woman that still had her arms around him._

_"Oh? Up already?" a voice called out, and Harry's gaze drifted higher towards the woman's face. He couldn't make out much in the mist, though—all he could see were a pair of violet eyes, a teasing smirk, and long and wild black hair. "And I was just getting comfortable…"_

_Harry swallowed hard—his throat was suddenly very dry, and it felt hard to speak. "A-ah, sorry, ma'am…um…wh-who are you?"_

_The woman's smirk widened, and her wild hair whipped about as she shook her head. "Not yet, Harry, I'm afraid you can't know me just yet." Her smirk dropped, then, replaced by a frown. "In fact, you mightn't known of me at all, if it hadn't been for those blasted Dementors…"_

_The frown then deepened into one of true concern, and Harry felt himself being pulled back down to rest against her breasts again, his cheeks reddening even more. "Those Dementors…I swear, my dear Harry, if I ever see them try and harm you again, I don't know if I'll be able to hold myself back! You worried me so…I just wish I could've done more without…"_

_"Dementors? Sorry, what are you talking about? And, why are you calling me—?" Harry began to ask, but he felt a pounding at his head, and the mists around him seemed to grow heavier._

_The woman looked around at the mists and frowned even more, sighing as she pulled Harry back down towards her again. "It looks like you're already waking up…well, no matter." Smiling, she leaned close, and though Harry was certain she was just a dream, or whatever this was that he was in, he actually felt her lips press to his forehead. "We'll meet again, very soon, my dear Harry."_

_"But—!" Harry began, but before he could say more, the mists drew thicker around him, making what little he could see of the woman disappear into the whiteness. Just like that, the woman was gone—_

—and Harry was dragged awake by the feeling of someone shaking his shoulder repeatedly. At the same time, he felt a small weight on his chest, and a small, familiar patting of paws. Blinking his eyes blearily open, Harry looked down to see Midnight pawing at him, looking at him with what could only be called worry in her violet gaze. He also noted she seemed a bit unnerved, the fur along her back still standing on end, even as he reached out to gently pet her.

"Oh thank Merlin, Harry, you're back!" Hermione gasped, and Harry soon found the familiar face of Hermione hovering over him, a look of concern in her eyes as she dropped down onto him in a tight hug.

Harry grunted but smiled at his friend's care, patting her shoulder gently. At the same time, Midnight flattened against Harry's chest and gave his bushy-haired friend a glare for nearly crushing her in the hug as well. "It's alright, Hermione, I'm fine."

Well, that wasn't quite true—he had a stinging headache that felt like he'd taken a bludger to the skull, and he still felt rather cold—but he'd rather say something comforting to mollify her.

Ron, nearby, seemed skeptical and gave him a pat on his other shoulder. "Of course—Harry Potter just stares down a Dementor and nearly gets his soul sucked, and he's just fine." The ginger shook his head with a small smirk. "Bloody hell, mate, you just couldn't wait to start the year off crazy."

"To be fair, last year we flew a car to Hogwarts, so I think we've started the year off crazy before," Harry pointed out, before frowning as he looked up at Ron, blinking his eyes as he thought. "Wait, what was that you said about getting my soul sucked?"

"It's what Dementors do, Harry."

The trio paused to look up to the voice—the man who had been sleeping on the compartment seat for their ride so far, Lupin if Harry remembered right, was standing in the compartment's doorway, looking a fair bit more awake and aware than he was before, but no less bedraggled. His sandy-brown hair was unkempt and wild, in a way that made it look like he'd tried running a hand through it to calm it after waking up, but his eyes remained clear and sharp. Lupin looked down at Harry, a brief look of relief flashing over his scarred face before he looked to the trio and slipped his wand that he'd been holding back into its holster.

"Dementors are the prison guards and wardens of Azkaban," Lupin explained, walking past them into the compartment and over to shuffle through his luggage. "They're wraith-like beings that feed off of happiness and joy, and as such have been summoned and used as living torture weapons for the prisoners of Azkaban since the Ministry's founding. Though, they've recently been organized into hunting packs to round up Black and Lestrange, which must've led them to the train—ah! Here we are!"

The man turned around to the trio, holding—of all things Harry and his friends could've expected him to be holding—a fairly large bar of chocolate in one hand. Giving the trio a haphazard smirk, Lupin took the bar in both his hands and gave it a few quick snaps, breaking off a few hearty pieces and tossing one into his mouth. He seemed to visibly relax as he ate his piece, taking only a moment to relish it before he walked up to the trio and began passing out the other three pieces.

"Just being in close proximity to a Dementor can suck the joy and happiness out of the room, to say nothing of should they approach you with intention to suck your soul out of you—what is known as the Dementor's Kiss," Lupin explained, before smirking down at Harry. "Thankfully, most of their effects can easily be combatted by chocolate."

Harry blinked in surprise, before dropping his gaze to the bite of chocolate in his hand. "Seriously?" he asked, looking back up at the man standing over him.

Lupin nodded, before raising an eyebrow in interest. "Yes…though, you seem just a bit better than most would be in your situation…" His gaze drifted down to the black cat now settling comfortably on Harry's chest and frowned. "Perhaps your familiar had something to do with that…still, a bit of chocolate can't hurt."

"Now then!" Lupin exclaimed, clapping his hands as he made his way to the open compartment door again. "I'll be off to find the aurors from before and see if they need any further help—I'd suggest the three of you stay here."

Before any of the three could say anything in return, the man swiftly stepped out and shut the door behind him, leaving them alone in the quiet of their train compartment. After a moment of silence, Harry sighed and stood back up—careful to keep Midnight close to him so she wouldn't be bothered—and popped the piece of chocolate into his mouth. True to Lupin's words, a faint warmth began to work its way through his body, giving him a feeling of lightness that melted away anything that remained from the Dementor's presence.

"Ah, that feels better," Ron exclaimed, gulping down his portion of the chocolate eagerly and then dropping back against the train's seat with a low sigh. "My dad's told me how bad Dementors can be, but I never thought I'd experience it for myself. Bloody hell, that was terrifying."

"Was it?" Harry asked, looking back over at his friends, his hand idly stroking along Midnight's back. "What was it like for you two?"

"Like all the happiness had been sucked out of the room, and I just got all cold all of a sudden," Ron replied, shaking his head and shuddering. "It's lucky Mr. Lupin was here with us—he managed to force it out before it could do any real harm, and then he and the aurors herded it out the train…but still, to be that close…"

"I hope I never have to experience anything like that ever again," Hermione murmured, shivering as well, before looking back up at Harry. Though her gaze was still a bit uneasy, there was a curious gleam to it that both Harry and Ron knew very well. "What about you, Harry? I mean, you were right in front of it when it came in."

"That, and you were the only one to pass out from it," Ron added, before withering under Hermione's gaze.

Harry chuckled a bit at Ron's attempt at humor, and how quickly Hermione cowed him of it, before he dropped his gaze to his lap and the cat he was slowly petting. "It…actually wasn't that different from how you two described it…just a lot more. And…" He paused, frowning. "…I think I remember screaming…a woman screaming, actually."

In his lap, Harry felt Midnight stiffen a bit, and two violet eyes stared up at him searchingly. Across from him, Hermione frowned. "There was no one who screamed, Harry. No one that we could hear, at least."

"So I'm just hearing things again?" Harry asked, his shoulders sagging a bit.

"Maybe?" Ron shrugged, before giving him a smirk. "Or, maybe there's a snake nearby that really didn't like the Dementors icing the whole train."

That did bring a laugh out of Harry, and soon whatever lingering coldness that had filled the compartment disappeared under the combined peals and chuckles of laughter from the three friends. Harry smiled and shot Ron a thankful grin, before looking back at Hermione and shrugging. "Other than that, there's little else I can remember. Just a coldness, a shock of fear, the sound of someone screaming, and then…"

He paused, his hand resting firmly on Midnight's back as he thought back to the…vision he'd had just a few moments earlier. Even now, he could still feel the softness of the strange woman's lips on his forehead, and the warmth and comfort that had surrounded him while he was in her embrace in that…place. After a moment, though, he shook his head. "…and then I woke up on the floor," he finished, keeping the memory of what happened to himself for now.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at that—it seemed she could tell Harry was keeping something else from them—but before she could say anything, the door of their compartment swung open again, and Lupin trudged back inside once more, the familiar figure of Tonks standing just outside.

"Well, that takes care of that," the bedraggled man sighed, dropping down into his seat beside Harry, pulling his patchwork jacket back over him like a blanket. "Hopefully that's the last we see of them for the rest of our trip."

"If Mad-eye had anything to say about it, it will be," Tonks stated with a firm nod, before looking around at the trio still in the train compartment and giving them a lopsided grin. "Sorry about that! Just had a bit of a problem with some of the other parties on the lookout for wandering criminals—we'll be taking off shortly, and should reach the castle in just a few more hours, don't you worry!"

With that, the pink haired auror slid the door closed, taking just a moment to smile over at Harry as if to say something before thinking better of it, and bounced off, leaving Harry and his friends to settle back down for the long road still ahead.

* * *

True to Tonks' words, the rest of the train ride to Hogwarts was free of any further inspections by Dementors, and they arrived at the castle just as the sun was beginning to set. By the time they arrived, Mr. R. J. Lupin had awoken yet again—still bedraggled but looking a bit fairer than he had for the whole of train ride—and he hurried off to wherever he was needed. It did bring to Harry's mind just how and where the professors like Lupin would enter the school…

Shaking his thoughts on the matter, Harry turned and joined Hermione and Ron in their walk towards the carriages. Midnight, again, followed along with him. Apparently she didn't like him going off on his own, and had refused to stay with his luggage. He couldn't blame her, though—after running into the Dementor, his familiar had been a bit uneasy unless Harry was holding her.

He was sure Hedwig would give him an earful over it, but he'd cross that bridge when he got to it.

His thoughts of Hedwig and Midnight were distracted as he heard the booming voice of Hagrid once more, telling the first years to gather around him for the boats, and directing the rest of the students towards the carriages. The large mountain of a man took a moment to wave over at Harry and his friends, and Harry waved back, a swelling in his chest as he felt a feeling of being at home finally come crashing over him. Smiling, he turned to follow Hermione and Ron towards the carriages—

—and nearly tripped over his own feet at the sight. About a dozen feet from the Hogsmeade platform stood about three dozen black carriages, and standing in front of each of the carriages stood two creatures. At first glance, he thought they were horses, but they were far too thin, their jet black skin clinging tightly to their bones. Then, of course, there were the enormous bat-like wings that were folded along their skeletal backs, leading back to long, whip-like tails. One of the nearest creatures turned to Harry, pearl white eyes staring him down.

Harry took a reflexive step back.

It took a moment for Hermione and Ron to notice, Hermione stepping up to the carriage Harry was standing by. "Harry?" she asked, looking down at him. "Aren't you going to get in?"

Harry blinked, and looked up at Hermione in surprise. Then, he remembered—she'd already ridden the carriages to Hogwarts. Last year, while Harry and Ron had taken their wild car flight across the country. Of course she wouldn't be bothered by the strange creatures pulling the carriages—and, it did make sense why no one else was making a fuss about it. They must already know about them.

"Sorry," he murmured, shaking himself and standing up to climb onto the carriage with them. "I just got a bit…nevermind."

"Still a bit out of it, mate?" Ron asked, before grinning and clapping a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Don't worry, once we get to the feast, you'll be fine!"

Harry nodded, though his gaze kept drifting towards the skeletal horses at the head of their carriage, even as he tried to push them out of his mind. It still bothered him that no one else was making more of a fuss about them. Surely someone else would be a bit…upset over such otherworldly creatures bringing them to the school? He distantly overheard someone exclaiming about them, saying something about 'the wrackspurts were right' and 'they really are thestrals', but they'd been a second year, so of course they would've been surprised to see the skelehorses too. Still, though, it left him wondering…

Perhaps he should bring it up with Hagrid, the next time he visited him.

And speaking of visits, Harry perked up a bit. He still had his meeting with Dumbledore after the feast. He smiled, moving his hand to his father's journal that he had sitting inside his robes' inner pocket—perhaps now, he'd finally get some answers to the questions he'd gathered over his time in Diagon Alley. That proved to be enough to push the thoughts of the Dementors and skelehorses out of his mind, and he smiled as he quickly walked into Hogwarts with Hermione and Ron.

And if the thought of his meeting with Dumbledore wasn't enough, the sight of the Great Hall certainly was. A sky of floating candles hovered over his head, illuminating the starry night sky that covered the enchanted ceiling. Four tables, still free of the bountiful feast to come, lined the Great Hall, and at the far end sat the teacher's table, with Headmaster Dumbledore sitting nobly in the middle. As Harry walked in, he swore he saw the old wizard smile a bit warmer in his direction.

Harry smiled. _Now_ he was home.

"Is it me, or is Hagrid sitting somewhere different?" Hermione asked, looking over at the head table with Harry as the trio sat down—Hermione on his right side and Ron on his left.

Harry blinked and looked a little closer. Sure enough, while Hagrid usually sat on the far end of the table, their giant friend was now sitting closer towards the middle amongst the professors, with Flitwick on his left and Lupin, the man from the train, on his right. "You think he's been promoted?" he asked.

Ron shrugged. "Maybe—I guess we'll find out with the announcements."

That, it turned out, would be quite a while away. As usual, Dumbledore waited until after the sorting ceremony had commenced and the feast had been served to give the announcements—perhaps he didn't want to upset their stomachs with whatever news for the year. As the last of the desserts had been polished off and Harry finished his last bit of treacle tart, the old wizard stood to the lectern at the front of the head table.

"Now, before we part ways for the evening," Dumbledore's voice boomed with serene power, "I have a few words of importance to share with you all—and not my usual few words, I'm afraid."

He turned his twinkling gaze to Fred and George, who looked halfway ready to shout out. The twins merely grinned back at him and nodded for him to continue. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled merrily, before he turned his gaze back over the Great Hall as a whole.

"First things first, as usual, the Forbidden Forest is off limits, as are castle grounds at night. Filch has also told me that he has updated the list of what is currently considered contraband, and the updated list can be found hanging outside his office near the front doors of the castle, for any of those interested." Again, his gaze drifted over to the Weasley twins, who were already looking eager to concoct more ways to mess with the old caretaker.

"Next, we have a change of faces in our staff this year. First to join us is Mr. Remus Lupin, who will be filling in for our vacant Defense Against the Dark Arts post this year. I hope you will all give him a warm welcome to our school." Dumbledore paused for the applause that followed as Lupin stood and briefly bowed. "Next, as Professor Silvanus Kettleburn has left us for an early retirement, we have found ourselves in need of a new Care of Magical Creatures professor. As such, it is my great pleasure to announce Mr. Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper of Hogwarts, shall now also be filling the Care of Magical Creatures post. I hope—"

Whatever else Dumbledore was about to say was drowned out by the sudden uproar of cheers for the half-giant gamekeeper, mainly from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Those that knew Hagrid knew him to be a kind and loving man, and especially good with creatures of all kinds, so this was certainly a wonderful bit of news.

"I knew it!" Ron whisper-shouted to Harry and Hermione.

Hermione smiled up at the head table. "It really suits him, you know—I can only assume he will have a lot he's able to teach us this year."

Harry nodded, grinning up at his first friend, whose face was a bright red as he bowed to the hall, making the table jostle a bit before sitting back down. He couldn't wait for his first Care of Magical Creatures class now—he was certain it was going to be incredible.

Somehow, the hall managed to calm down after a few minutes, Dumbledore smiling pristinely through the entire ordeal. "Now then, as I was saying," he chuckled softly, "I hope you will all give him the respect that a man of his position deserves." Harry noticed the wizard's eyes seemed to linger on Slytherin table for a moment as he said that, before he continued. "Now then, we have a note of more serious matters to address here. By no doubt, you noted the aurors who were stationed aboard the Hogwarts Express on your trip here—and, of the reports of Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange escaping Azkaban."

The hall instantly went deathly silent.

Dumbledore continued. "The aurors have been assigned to guard duty here at Hogwarts and in the neighboring town of Hogsmeade, as extra protection and precautions should either of these dangerous criminals try and attack Hogwarts this year. In addition, the Ministry has sent one-hundred of their Dementors that they have circling Azkaban to assist in the efforts to hunt down and capture Black and Lestrange." Dumbledore's eyes blazed blue as he spoke. "It is here that I offer a bit of caution—Dementors are inhumane beings from another world, and they are incredibly dangerous. Be careful while they are about."

No one dared refute Dumbledore's words, especially no one who had been at the part of the train where the Dementor had shown up. The old wizard seemed to take a moment to let those words hang in the air for a moment, before smiling and adding, "But, do not worry too much. After all, happiness can bloom even in the darkest of times… if we but only know how to let the light back in."

And just like that, the uneasiness from his previous statements disappeared—whether it was because of Dumbledore's comforting words, or the humorous familiarity in his cryptic, calming manner of speech, a blanket of relief fell over the Great Hall, and the anxious looks from student to student dwindled until most everyone was calmed down again.

"Now, with that sorted away, I believe it is time to end our feast," Dumbledore finally announced with a twinkle in his eye. Gesturing to the back of the hall, he added, "Please follow your prefects to your common rooms, and let us enjoy another wonderful year at Hogwarts."

With that, the four Hogwarts Houses all stood, ready to end the night. As the trio followed their house out of the Great Hall, however, Harry hung back a bit. This did not go unnoticed by Hermione, who turned back to him and raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you coming, Harry?"

Harry shook his head. "I can't—I've got a meeting with Dumbledore."

"Already?" Ron exclaimed, shaking his head. "Merlin's beard, Harry, it's not even the first day!"

"Not like that!" Harry admonished with a bit of a laugh, before sobering up a bit. "It has to do with something I found out over the summer—about the vaults and the inheritance test," he added quickly, and softly, not wanting too many others nearby to overhear.

At that, Ron and Hermione both shared a look of understanding and nodded. "Oh, I see," Ron replied, before sighing and shifting his hands into his pockets. "Well, I'll try and tell the guys not to have too much fun until you get back, alright?"

"Alright," Harry nodded with a grin, before taking another step back. "I promise, I'll be back soon."

His friends both nodded, before turning and following the rest of their House down the hall and up towards the moving staircase that would—hopefully—lead them up to Gryffindor Tower. Harry hung back and watched them walk off, waiting until they were gone, before turning around and making his way down towards the other end of the hall, towards the stairs he knew would lead to the Headmaster's office.

Soon enough, he found himself standing before the gryphon gargoyle that stood before the spiral staircase leading up to Dumbledore's office. Fumbling through his robes, Harry found the letter Dumbledore had sent him a few weeks earlier and read the password—"Cherry Sherbet"—the headmaster had left for him. At once, the large gargoyle leaped to the side, and Harry was left to climb the steps to the Headmaster's office alone.

Well…not quite alone.

"_Mrroww?_"

Harry froze midway up the steps, whirling around to stare down at a mass of blackness sitting at his feet. Two iridescent violet eyes staring up at him made it clear that it was his familiar, Midnight, and as he recognized her he reached down to lift her up off of the staircase step.

"Midnight, what are you…?" Harry asked, frowning. He'd lost track of his familiar through the feast—at some time during the meal, the cat had decided to wander off some place. He'd assume she'd make her way back to him eventually, like she had while they were living in the Alley over the summer. Still, he hadn't expected her to follow him to the Headmaster's office—he didn't even know if he was allowed to bring his familiar with him to the office.

Midnight mewled loudly at him as he held her, and distantly below them he could hear the gargoyle gyphon move back into place and seal the stairway. Sighing, Harry leaned down to set her back down on the stairs. "Well, you're here now—might as long come along with…"

The cat replied by mewling loudly again and rubbing up against his leg, purring happily. Like in the train compartment, Harry felt a bit more at ease feeling Midnight rub up against him, and reached down to gently rub behind her ears. Smiling, Harry turned back around to the rest of the stairs and continued his way up, his familiar now close to his side and weaving between his feet and legs.

The headmaster's office was the same as he remembered it when he'd last visited it at the end of the previous year. Fawkes, the phoenix, sat upon a perch near the professor's desk, upon which were numerous different strange and mysterious objects that spun and puffed and whistled at odd intervals. Behind the desk where the portraits of all of the previous headmasters—some asleep, some awake, and some wandered off to wherever their other portraits might be.

And in the middle of all of it, sitting at his desk, was the old wizard, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore himself.

"Ah, Harry my boy," Dumbledore sighed, smiling warmly over at him. "It is good to see you. I'm glad to see that you are well, even after the state of things you went through this summer—would you care for a lemon drop?"

Harry shook his head, moving to sit down across from him. "Thanks, but I'm alright, Professor. But speaking of this summer—"

"Ah, yes," Dumbledore nodded, leaning back in his seat as he pulled free one of the yellow candies from a jar on his desk and popped it into his mouth. "I shouldn't dwell too long, should I? I promised you some answers to the questions you raised in your letter, and so answers I will give…you…"

The wizard drifted off as Midnight suddenly leaped up from the floor onto Harry's lap, sitting tall and proud and staring up at him with a firm violet gaze. Dumbledore raised one silvery eyebrow in interest, before looking back at Harry. "Well now, who is this?"

Harry winced, at once wondering if perhaps he should've tried a bit harder to shoo his familiar away for this meeting. "Ah, well Professor, this is my new familiar, Midnight. I met her over the summer, and we've…sort of been inseparable since then. It's why she followed me up here, Professor—I didn't even realize she was with me until it was too late. I hope it's not…a problem, that I have her here, sir?"

Midnight, noticeably, stiffened a bit, her gaze drifting just a bit below the old wizard's eyes.

Regardless, Dumbledore's eyes twinkled merrily in reply, and he shook his head. "Oh no, no my dear Harry, there's no problem! The bond between wizard and familiar is a strong one, after all—though, I must admit, it has been a while since I've heard of someone having two familiars…"

"Yes, that's what I gathered from the text on it," Harry nodded, sagging with relief, his familiar doing the same amusingly enough. "But, anyways, that's not what I came here for, Professor…I came to know why you didn't tell me you were my Magical Guardian before now."

In his lap, Midnight kept her firm gaze fixed on the old wizard sitting across from them.

Dumbledore sighed and leaned back in his chair, sucking on the lemon drop in his mouth for a moment before finally looking back at Harry. "Ah yes, the Magical Guardianship…" he mused, steepling his hands on his desk. "Well, my dear boy, I simply felt it was something you didn't need to know of just yet. After all, your magical welfare is quite in good graces so long as you are here, and your muggle relatives were more than able to ensure your physical welfare. So, as long as you were well, I felt there was no need to reveal myself."

"As long as I was well?" Harry asked, incredulous. "Professor, I have never been well—certainly not with my relatives. This summer might've been the first time I actually ran from Privet Drive, but it was far from the first time I'd wished I could, or wished that I could be taken away from there so I didn't have to live in fear or pain anymore."

"My boy, I'm sure you're exaggerating," Dumbledore tried.

"No!" Harry exclaimed, frowning over at Dumbledore. "You don't get to pull that on me, not now that I know that you are partially responsible for my welfare. Maybe you aren't responsible for my physical wellbeing, but you should've still done something! Maybe check in to make sure I'm doing well—I doubt my relatives punishing me each time I did something 'freakish' or 'unnatural' could've been good for my magical wellbeing."

Professor Dumbledore seemed to stiffen slightly at Harry's words, and a distant look drifted over his face as he seemed to be pulled back by different thoughts. Harry kept his gaze firm on Dumbledore, his frustration and anger at this situation beginning to boil over. Before either could say anything again, though, Fawkes began to sing from his perch, and Harry felt his aggression melt away, soothed. Across him, Dumbledore visibly relaxed, though a look of confliction still lingered on his fac.

In his lap, Midnight began to softly purr with the phoenix song.

Dumbledore took a beat before sighing and shaking his head. "I can see what you mean…I supposed it would be best for you to be kept out of the Wizarding World until it would be best for you. The more time you had for a simpler childhood, the better."

Harry opened his mouth to refute, before frowning and pausing to think. "I…can understand the sentiment, Professor, but I've never had a 'simpler' childhood—I doubt I even had an option for a childhood to begin with! Whatever worries you had, bringing me into the Wizarding World earlier would've been better than leaving me with my relatives, sir—they may be related to me, but that place has never felt like home."

As he said that, one of the trinkets on the table—a small teapot-like object that had been intermittently puffing out small clouds of smoke—suddenly squealed loudly, releasing a thick stream of steam. Midnight leaped in surprise and backed up into Harry's chest, and Harry clapped his hands over his ears to block out the sharp sound. Then, suddenly, there was a snapping sound, and the sharp whistling disappeared. Grimacing, Harry looked back up at the table, and the teapot sat silently on the table, a long crack running up its side and with steam fading from its spout.

Dumbledore stared in shock down at the teapot, before looking back at Harry. "No…I suppose it hasn't."

"What…what was that?" Harry asked, his gaze fixed on the broken teapot and his hands lowering to pet Midnight's ears, the black cat relaxing under his touch.

Dumbledore seemed conflicted for a moment before visibly sagging. "That, my dear boy, was one of several devices I created to monitor your wellbeing while at Privet Drive. While I could not physically be there, due to my duties and the statute of secrecy, I could still keep an eye on you, if only from a distance. That particular device was tied to the wards surrounding Privet Drive—blood wards tuned to you and your closest blood relative that would keep you safe from magicals who might seek you harm while in Little Whinging."

He paused, turning to riffle through the lemon drop jar again. "And that…was the wards breaking because you expressed it was not your home, which we will have to deal with at some point…"

Harry blinked in surprise, his mind reeling a bit. On the one hand, he was thankful for acknowledgement that Professor Dumbledore had been keeping an eye on him in some way, but on the other… "So, that's why you insist on having me go back, despite my protests."

"Yes," Dumbledore nodded, removing a lemon drop from the jar and slowly rolling it between his fingers. "As long as the wards were in place, you were safe from danger, and you would be someplace I could safely monitor and ensure your safety."

Harry frowned, dipping his gaze down to the familiar in his lap. Midnight shared his gaze, and he gave her a faint smile as he gently scratched behind her ears again. "A good lot of nothing that did for keeping me safe from my own relatives," Harry finally stated, turning his gaze back to Dumbledore. "And a lot of good it did in helping me learn about my role in the Wizarding World."

At that, Dumbledore noticeably deflated. "Harry," he began.

Harry shook his head. "No, Professor, this is a problem I've been working through since this summer when I should've known about it since first year." His gaze hardened, and his hand moved off of Midnight's head, much to her vocal displeasure. "You kept me in the dark when you could've at least let me in on this when I was introduced to the Wizarding World—why didn't you?"

Dumbledore sighed and closed his eyes. "Like I said before, Harry…I wanted you to have a simple childhood. And, while you might've not had the simplest childhood with your relatives—"

"That's putting it mildly," Harry murmured.

"—I had hoped that you would still be able to have a simple childhood while here at school," Dumbledore continued. "You didn't need to be wrapped up in the drama and politics that would be required of you as the heir of the Potter House. You deserved a chance to just be young still, to have fun and live your life."

Harry frowned and looked up into Dumbledore's face, staring back into his twinkling blue eyes. Despite his anger and frustration at the old wizard, in that moment he felt his heart begin to soften. He saw Dumbledore for who he really was—a man, just a man, who had been trying his best for so long he honestly didn't truly know what was the best option at times. In his lap, Midnight mewled softly, and Harry sighed, leaning down to gently run his fingers through her fur.

"…Professor Dumbledore," he finally sighed, looking back up at him. "I appreciate the thought…"

Dumbledore began to smile, but Harry shook his head and continued.

"But! Like I said before, I haven't had a simple childhood at all, not even while at Hogwarts." Harry sighed as he thought over it. "Last year, I was ostracized by the entire school for a part of myself I didn't choose to have, and then ended the year driving a sword through the skull of basilisk, nearly poisoned myself to death, and then stabbed Tom Riddle's diary to death."

In his lap, Midnight perked her ears up in interest.

"And the year before that, me and my friends had to go through some of the most dangerous traps and tricks imagined to protect the Philosopher's Stone," Harry frowned. "I had to watch my friends nearly get killed in a giant chess game, I faced down Voldemort, both in the Forbidden Forest and by the Mirror of Erised, and I had to…kill…" Harry shivered, "Professor Quirrell to keep the stone safe."

Harry's gaze shifted back to Dumbledore. "I've never had a 'simple childhood', Professor, and so I think I deserve the right to know a bit more about the world that I'm now a part of and how I fit into it—before I actually end up getting myself killed."

Dumbledore's twinkling gaze dimmed, the stars in his eyes disappearing as he fell back in his seat with a sigh, running his hands over his eyes. "I see what you mean," he finally replied, a somber smile on his face as he nodded.

There was a moment of silence between the two of them for a moment, before Dumbledore sat up tall again and fixed his gaze on Harry once more. "Harry my boy, it seems that I have failed you terribly these past few years. I know that I have made mistakes, and I will seek to try and rectify them—beginning with offering the resources you will need to be able to fill your role in the Wizarding World."

Harry blinked in surprise, before a relieved grin spread across his face. "That…that's a good start," he replied with a smile.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled merrily at Harry's words. His gaze then drifted over to the broken teapot on his desk, causing Harry's gaze to drift down to it as well. Sighing, the old wizard reached out and picked the teapot up, giving it a cursory look, before pulling back a drawer of his desk and slipping it inside. "And…I suppose I can see if we can make your life at home better than it has been in the past."

"If you could, Professor, that would be wonderful," Harry nodded, sighing with relief.

Dumbledore nodded in turn, before standing from the desk and walking around to Harry's side. "Well, if that's settled, I believe it's time you return to your common room. I hear that there is to be quite the party, if the rumors surrounding Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley are anything to go off of."

Harry grinned and nodded, standing from his seat, Midnight leaping down to his side. "That does sound good," Harry replied, before taking the headmaster's hand and nodding to him. "Thank you, again, Professor. I…this has been hard to hear at parts, but it makes me feel a bit better about what I learned in Diagon Alley."

Dumbledore smiled in turn, stepping back as Harry turned and walked back towards the spiral staircase that led down and out of the office. Once he was gone, though, Dumbledore sighed and looked back at his desk, and the other devices that sat upon it. Specifically, he found his gaze drifting towards an object made of several orbs suspended by strings, which would click against each other in constant motion. Each time one ball hit another, the balls would flash through the colors of the rainbow.

Dumbledore sighed and shook his head, moving back to sit down in his seat once more. Behind him, Fawkes crowed out softly—a low and somber sound that did little to settle the old wizard's nerves. "My dear boy Harry," he softly murmured. "I told you much tonight, but there is still much yet to tell…my only hope is that, when such a time arises to tell you the whole truth, you will still be able to trust me."

With that, Dumbledore lowered his head into his hands, the phoenix song all that could be heard in the headmaster's office.


	5. Chap 5: Classes

**So...this did not go quite how I expected...**

**Hey everyone, The Lonely Lorekeeper here, and real talk for a second: I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time when I'm writing these stories. Half of the time I have a general idea of what is going on, but for the most part I just let my muses go and hope they end up somewhere good. And as such...this chapter sort of got away from me. It was actually supposed to go for another scene—you can probably guess what the scene was going to be about from context as you get to the end of the chapter****—but this chapter had already gone on for so long already...**

**So, instead of having two chapters covering Harry's first few days back to Hogwarts, we're going to have three****—Chapters 5, 6, and 7, in which we'll see Harry attend his new classes for the year, enter into some new territory that I am honestly not certain I am ready to write about without some good studying, and finally end on the high note of the Third Book that got everyone to cheer, Draco nearly getting mauled by a pissed off Hippogriff.**

**Or at least, that's the plan for now...Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 5: Classes**

Bellatrix waited until nearly midnight before she shifted back into her human form. A cat-like smirk spread across her rosy lips as she looked around the third-year boy's dormitory, stopping only a second to let her gaze linger on one of the other boy's beds, before looking away. She was not here on _his_ orders, so she would leave him be. Still, just to be safe, Bellatrix whipped out her wand—a slender shaft of holly and dragon heartstring—and traced it in a slow arc around her, lowering a simple silencing charm over the entire room.

The wand was not her first—that was still possessed by the DMLE evidence vault, as far as she knew—but it was a good replacement, in some ways even better than her original. She had picked it up during one of her late-night wanderings through Diagon Alley, when she'd noticed Ollivander's store window had been left ajar. She doubted the old wandmaker would mind her…_borrowing_ the new wand—after all, the wand chooses the witch, and this wand had called out to her like a siren's song.

Smirking to herself, Bellatrix raised her admiring gaze from her wand and stepped out into the center of the room, the moonlight once more illuminating her. If any of the boys were awake, she was sure they'd be in for quite the surprise—despite picking up a wand, she had not yet picked up clothes, and as such was as naked as that first night with Harry. She supposed she could've picked something up in the same manner she had picked up her new wand, but it just seemed a waste to wear clothes that would only go filthy from all the months she remained a cat.

That, and she was looking forward to the surprise when Harry saw her for the first time.

Bellatrix's smirk widened a bit, and she slowly turned back around to stare at her master's sleeping form. She would join him soon enough, but for the moment, she needed to put into motion her plans for him this year. So, with a nod to herself, she walked over to Harry's trunk and threw the lid open, unworried for anyone to hear her as she began to rummage about.

Over the summer, Bellatrix had taken note of the classes Harry was expecting to take this year and had decided to sample some of the texts offered. They were all decent for other average third-year students, but she knew that Harry was on the road to become so much more than just an average wizard. She was paving the way for him to be the most powerful wizard to have ever existed, and so he needed…just a bit more than what the average curriculum offered him. And luckily, Bellatrix had plenty to offer him.

With that in mind, Bellatrix removed all of the textbooks that Harry had bought and studied over the summer and tapped them once each on the covers with her wand. She smiled to herself, then opened the first of the books, her smile widening as she saw what was inside. Where once had simply been a fresh, new textbook—only lightly touched by a young student's hands—was now a textbook filled with a few extra notes and tips written in the margins. Each of the textbooks looked like this, including his Defense Against the Dark Arts book.

That textbook in particular, she noted, had a few tips that would be fairly familiar to Harry, had he actually read the books she'd brought him from the Cryptonomica. If she couldn't guide him into the dark arts by way of the books themselves, perhaps she could ease him into it by advice in his own school textbook. One way or another, though, she would show him how to truly be the most powerful he could be.

And once he was…Bellatrix shivered at the thought, letting out an involuntary sigh.

As soon as she was done removing her concealment charms from each of the textbooks, Bellatrix placed them back into the trunk, just as they'd been when she'd found them. She was then left with the last of the textbooks, and her smirk slipped. Frowning, she held the offending book up to into the full moon's light, her violet eyes slowly drifting over the cover.

Divination…it was a fool's study, and a waste of time.

Oh, make no mistake, Bellatrix Lestrange-Black believed in fate and destiny and superstitions—she just didn't believe in teaching it. Interpreting prophecies and hidden truths was a secret art you were born with, rarely if ever something that could be taught, and yet for so long the class had been offered at Hogwarts as something that could be taught if the students worked at it hard enough. It was nonsense, and as such a complete waste of her master's time.

Shooting the book an offending glare, Bellatrix pointed her wand at it and gave the book a few quick slashes, the cover and pages soon ripped and torn as if by an angered animal, though still in one piece. Nodding to herself, she set the book down on top of Harry's trunk, before placing two more textbooks right beside it—_Numerology and Grammatica_ and _Spellman's Syllabarry_, both just as enhanced of versions as the other textbooks.

Bellatrix took a moment to step back and inspect her handiwork. If all went well tomorrow, her master would be well on the way to greatness indeed. And, if he needed a little extra push…well, that was why she was here.

Smirking, Bellatrix nodded to herself before quietly walking back around from the foot of the fourposter bed to Harry's side, and then just as silently slipped under the covers. Her cat-like smile returned as she felt Harry shift about and wrap his arms around her, pulling her close against him as he had each night she'd joined him. She laughed to herself and leaned over to lightly press her lips against her master's forehead.

"Sleep well, my dear Harry," she murmured, "Tomorrow is a very big day…"

* * *

The next morning found Harry rising with the sun, a tired yet contented sigh escaping him as he sat up on the fourposter bed. Despite the improved lodgings of Tom's bar during the last half of the summer, Harry couldn't deny that the Gryffindor dorm's beds were by far the most comfortable he had slept in throughout his life. And, after a good night's sleep in his, he felt more alive and awake than he had in a few months.

"Good morning, Midnight," Harry murmured, not at all surprised to see his black cat familiar once more curled up on the pillow beside him—if anything, he'd come to expect it from her, and found a certain amount of comfort in her presence.

Midnight mewled back in reply to her master, violet eyes gleaming up at him as he began to get up. She then perked up and glanced around as the curtains surrounding another of the beds parted. Instantly, her eyes narrowed in interest.

"Morning, Harry," Neville called out, stumbling out of his bed still looking a bit sleep-drunk. "Sleep alright?"

"Wonderful, actually," Harry replied, walking around the bed towards his trunk to get what he'd need to start his day. "I haven't slept that well in months. I think I even had some pretty good dreams, too, which is a nice change of pace…though, for some reason, I just can't remember—"

Harry cut off as he rounded the corner of his bed and noticed the textbooks sitting out for him. The first was his Divination textbook that he had mostly ignored over the summer—now, though, it looked as though it had gotten into a fight with a blender, and lost. Badly. The other two textbooks were ones that he didn't even recognize buying, but by reading the names on their covers he could remember them as the textbooks for the classes he _wasn't_ taking.

Neville noticed Harry seem to drift off a bit and walked over to his side. His gaze instantly locked onto the nearly-shredded book, and he blinked bewilderedly down at it. "What in Merlin's name happened?"

"I don't know," Harry replied, slowly shaking his head. "I don't even remember putting these textbooks out last night—hell, I don't even remember buying those last two—where did they even come from?"

The answer came from the sudden meow from Harry's bed. Harry and Neville both looked up to see the black form of Midnight slowly slink across the upturned bedsheets and over the footrest to land on the trunk before the two of them. Midnight turned her violet gaze up to Harry, staring unblinkingly up at him for a moment, before padding over to the shredded Divination textbook and giving it an authoritative smack with her paw.

All at once, the bewildered look in Harry's gaze disappeared, and he bowed his head forward in a sigh. "Of course it was you," he murmured, shaking his head slowly.

Neville blinked and turned to Harry, his look of bewilderment still very much in place. "Wait, you mean your cat did this?"

"It's not really that surprising," Harry replied with a shrug, bending down to pick up the ruined book, Midnight making another swipe at it as it went. "Throughout the summer, Midnight kept bringing back things to the apartment—crazy things, like extra potion ingredients, or books that she'd get from…somewhere. I don't know where she got them from, or how she brought them back, but she always had something new to add to her collection."

Neville frowned at Harry's words, and he turned his gaze back to the cat on the trunk. He was a bit unnerved by her gaze—it seemed a bit too intelligent, even by familiar standards. "Are you sure it was just a collection? Maybe she was trying to send you a message."

Harry chuckled dryly. "If that was what she was doing, then based on the books, I do not want to know what she was trying to say."

He then paused, blinking slowly as his mind began to work. His gaze drifted back down to the ruined Divination book in his hands, then down to the two other textbooks laid out—textbooks that he didn't remember buying. His gaze drifted back over to Midnight after a moment, the violet-eyed cat staring back at him. For a moment, he felt as if the eyes were familiar, as if he'd seen them before from something other than his familiar. The thought was gone a minute later, though, when the cat reached up to smack at the Divination textbook again.

Harry shook his head, before pulling the book away from his cat's reach and looking back over to Neville. "Though, you may be right in this instance—Midnight does seem to really hate this textbook…maybe she doesn't want me to take Divination?"

"That would explain why the other textbooks are out there, too," Neville nodded, casting a curious glance over them. "Still unclear just _where_ they came from, though…"

"Honestly?" Harry sighed, walking over to a nearby waste bin to toss away the ruined Divination textbook. "In my opinion, the less I know about where she finds her weird books and potions and ingredients and whatever, the better off it is for me." Shrugging, he walked back over to the trunk and picked up both textbooks, sliding them into his bag, before opening the trunk itself. "Guess I'll have to tell Professor McGonagall to change my schedule…"

"Wait, you're changing your schedule?"

Harry paused, looking up to see Ron quickly rolling out of his bed, still looking very sleepy and more than a bit alarmed. "Yeah, I'm dropping Divination," he replied, pulling out his other textbooks and adding them to his bag as well. "Apparently Midnight doesn't think it's a good fit."

"But it's so easy!" Ron exclaimed, rushing over to his side and clapping his shoulder good-naturedly. "And anyways, why are you taking advice from a cat of all things?"

"Because the cat gives good advice," Harry shrugged, standing up as he grabbed a change of clothes and began to make his way over to the bathroom to get ready for the day. "There were a few times during the summer where I was in a bit of a bind, and she either helped keep me calm and comforted through it, or just straight-up got me a book that helped me out. And besides, she ruined my textbook."

Ron sighed, before shrugging back to him and turning back to his bed. "Fine, fine, but I still think you're making a mistake, mate," he muttered, following Harry and Neville into the bathroom with his own change of clothes.

Outside, on the bed, Midnight's eyes gleamed with self-satisfaction.

By the time the trio were done getting dressed and ready for the day, breakfast had already begun to roll around on the clock. Ron paused just a moment to whack both Seamus and Dean awake before following Harry and Neville back down the steps into the common room. The trio paused a moment to look around—there were a few other Gryffindors hanging about, but none from their year.

"I'm surprised we got up before Hermione," Ron commented, looking up the girl's stairs a moment.

Harry nodded, before looking back to Neville. "Go on ahead, Neville, we're gonna wait on Hermione a bit longer."

"You'll be waiting a while," suddenly came a voice from the stairs. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil walked down the steps to the trio, both of the third-year girls looking well-rested and well put together. Lavender gestured back behind her as she explained. "She just woke up, and she'll probably take a while to get put together."

Ron groaned and shook his head. "We can't wait forever on her, though—if we wait too long, the breakfast will be gone!"

"Ron, when has Hogwarts ever actually run out of food?" Harry asked.

"I don't know, but it could happen!" Ron spluttered in reply, his ears going a bit red. "Look, it's just one morning—we got up ahead of her, which is a first. Let's just go, alright? She'll meet us down there, anyway."

For a moment, a look of indecision crossed Harry's face as he looked between his first school friend and the stairs leading up to his best friend. After a minute, though, he felt Midnight's form rubbing up against him, the cat's soft mewling reaching up to him and sounding of hunger. Sighing, he reached down and pet the familiar's head before turning to Ron and Neville and giving them both a nod.

"Alright, let's go—we're saving a spot for Hermione when we get there, though."

"Of course, why wouldn't we?" Ron exclaimed in reply as they all walked out of the common room porthole.

When they reached the great hall, however, the trio found their decision had been a bit unnecessary—as, sitting at their usual spot at the table and with a pile of textbooks beside her, was Hermione. Harry and Ron stared in shock before hurrying over to her side. The bushy-haired bookworm was in the middle of reading one of her textbooks, but as she looked up to turn the page, she noticed the three Gryffindors walking up to her and waved them a smile.

"Morning, Harry, Ron, Neville," she called out, dropping her gaze to her textbook.

"Morning, Hermione," Harry muttered, slowly sitting down beside her before shooting the witch a frown. "How did you get down here before us?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, reaching for a piece of toast.

"We mean, how did you get here before us?" Ron stated again, sitting down on Harry's other side, craning over him to look at Hermione. "Lavender and Parvati said you were still getting ready."

"They must've been mistaken," Hermione replied with a shrug.

From Harry's lap, Midnight looked over at Hermione, her violet gaze narrowed in suspicion.

Before Harry and Ron could push the subject further, more of the students began filtering into the great hall, and so the House Heads began making their way around handing out the schedules. Harry and Ron fell silent as Professor McGonagall moved towards them, thumbing through her sheets before handing over one schedule for each of the three sitting before her.

"And, do be mindful of what I mentioned to you last night, Miss Granger," the professor added in a slightly hushed tone, before leaning back and continuing on her way.

"Um, excuse me, Professor?" Harry suddenly spoke up, standing from the table as he did so. "I was actually wondering if I could speak with you about my schedule."

Professor McGonagall paused and turned back to Harry, her eyebrow raised in interest. "And what about it, Mr. Potter?"

Harry paused and looked over his schedule, then back up to his head of house. "Well, Professor, I've done some thinking since I sent in what classes I wanted to take this term, and I think I've decided that I don't want to take Divination anymore."

For just the briefest of moments, there was a spark of elation in McGonagall's eyes, before she straightened herself and her face snapped back into a severe, impartial frown. "Oh? And what would you be taking instead of Divination, Mr. Potter?"

"Ancient Runes and Arithmancy," he stated, reaching into his bag and pulling out the textbooks. "I've already got the books here, ready to go."

Professor McGonagall's eyes narrowed, and she looked back up to Harry. "That's two classes, Mr. Potter, and you're only dropping one."

"I could also drop History of Magic—come on, Professor," Harry quickly added, when he noticed the old witch puff up in protest—"I've been going here for two years so far, and all Professor Binns' class is good for is getting some sleep. I'd be much better of dropping the class, doing the coursework on my own time, and filling that time instead with Arithmancy or Ancient Runes."

There was silence for a moment as Professor McGonagall seemed to stare Harry down. Even the casual conversation from other students at the table around them had petered out, as the other students tried to listen in as casually as they could. After a moment, however, the old professor's stern stare shifted into a small smile, and she gave Harry a faint nod.

"Those are some good arguments, Mr. Potter," she replied, "I shall inform Professors Vector and Babbling of your placement in their classes."

Harry let out a sigh of relief he hadn't thought he'd been holding and smiled back at his head of house. "Thank you, Professor—"

"Although," she sharply added, raising an eyebrow at him once more, "Because of how sudden a change, you're not going to be able to attend the usual Ancient Runes and Arithmancy classes for third year Gryffindors—especially not considering the other classes you'd be taking. You'll have to take them with Hufflepuff and Slytherin—both of which are at the same time as the classes you just dropped."

Harry froze. "Slytherin? Why can't I just join Hermione in her classes?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but Ms. Granger is a special case in her workload," Professor McGonagall replied, even as Hermione surreptitiously slipped her schedule into her bag, away from the prying eyes of her friends. "I'm sure you'll be able to handle the House divide just fine, and represent our House with dignity."

With that, Professor McGonagall tapped her wand to the parchment Harry's schedule had been written out on. Instantly, the ink and words shifted, and History of Magic—after a double session of Potions—became replaced with Ancient Runes, while Divination—after lunch—was replaced by Arithmancy. Harry felt a bit of a pit settling in his stomach—he was fine picking up a new class he hadn't prepared for, but with Slytherins, and he the only Gryffindor? He didn't know how well that would go.

As Professor McGonagall walked off, though, Harry felt Midnight's paws rest on his chest and begin kneading slowly. He stared down at his familiar, before smiling and gently petting her. Whatever he was in store for, he could handle it.

Couldn't be worse than a Basilisk, after all, could it?

With that thought in mind, Harry polished off his breakfast, idly chatting with his friends, the discussion of Hermione's schedule and Harry's plans to walk into a den of badgers and snakes for the moment set by the wayside. There was no post—nothing of note, at least—and so once the last of the sausage and eggs had been finished, Harry, Neville, Ron, and Hermione stood and hurried out of the great hall and on their way down to Potions for the first two hours of their day.

Well, Harry, Ron, and Neville took off to Potions—Hermione, meanwhile, excused herself for a brief moment before reappearing oddly out of wind. The Gryffindor boys asked her about it, but Hermione waved away their concerns and ushered them to keep moving down towards Potions.

Potions classroom was, as usual, a dank and disturbing dungeon, made only more disturbing by Snape lingering in the corner, his black cloak wrapped close around him like a bat as he watched them with his cold, emotionless gaze. Harry felt a certain prickling up the back of his neck as the older wizard's gaze shifted over to him, and beside him Midnight hissed quietly. It seemed his familiar shared his sentiments about the greasy-haired git.

Snape's eyes narrowed as he noticed the cat, before striding quickly up to Harry's side. "Potter! What is this creature doing in my classroom?"

Midnight's ears flattened at Snape's remarks, but Harry rested his hand on her back before she could hiss. Instead, the black cat simply glared up at pale man with a furious gaze. "She's my familiar, so she goes where I go," Harry coolly replied.

"Animals are not allowed in Potions class, Mr. Potter," Snape drawled, lips pulled up in a sneer as he shifted his gaze back to Harry. "The ingredients and concoctions we work with can be quite…unpleasant for them to deal with. Five points from Gryffindor—now, remove this creature from the classroom so that we may begin."

Harry rolled his eyes but stood anyway and carried Midnight out of the classroom, Malfoy and his crew sneering over at him as he did so. He really wasn't that surprised, honestly—Snape had a good point, even though Harry still wondered why familiars were in danger of the fumes, but not the students, especially when they might accidentally melt their cauldron, or have it blow up in their face. The better answer was simply that Snape was looking for a reason to deduct him points, and Harry had handed him the chance with his black ball of fluff.

Midnight mewled up at him as he set her down outside the classroom. "It's just for a bit," he murmured, "Be back in a couple hours, alright?"

His familiar flicked her tail and flattened her ears before turning around and walking off down the hall. Harry sighed—hopefully she wasn't too bothered by this—and walked back into the classroom, letting the door shut tight behind him.

"Now then," Snape drawled out, eyes piercing Harry as he hurried over to his spot beside Hermione and Ron, "we can begin."

Snape's cloak billowed out behind him as he sharply turned around and flicked his wand to the blackboard, the chalk rising and writing on its own the instructions for the class. For the next half an hour, the professor explained in his cold, harsh tone the directions for the class, the expectations he had for each of them. He then split them into pairs—and, perhaps he was feeling a bit more cruel than usual, but each of the Gryffindors found themselves paired off with a Slytherin.

Harry, in his case, found himself paired off with one Daphne Greengrass—a blonde-haired girl sitting off to the back, her ice-blue eyes staring him down as he dared sit down beside her. "Nice to meet you as well," Harry muttered, rolling his eyes slowly as he looked back up to the blackboard. Snape's instructions, written as illegibly as ever, were already on the board.

"Just don't slow me down, Potter," Daphne replied, her voice cool but not threatening. Still, Harry wisely nodded back to her.

"Over the summer, you were tasked with writing a five page essay on the Shrinking Potion—now, you shall brew the potion here in class," Snape drawled, sweeping around to his desk. "Turn to page forty-three to find the instructions—though, if you did the essay, I would hope you remember it."

Harry rolled his eyes at Snape's tone—how were they supposed to remember a potion they wrote about nearly two months ago?—and instead simply removed his Potion's textbook from his bag and opened it to the page Snape had instructed. Immediately, though, he found himself shocked by the content. Page after page was lined with notes, suggestions, and little hints on how to brew the potion best. Harry blinked in surprise, flipping back through the rest of the text, only to find more of the same.

"Potter, are you going to help me start with the potion or not?" Daphne suddenly spoke up, frowning over at him.

Shaking his head, Harry turned back to Daphne and nodded. "Sorry, I just got…distracted by something…"

"Well stop being distracted," she replied, turning her attention back to their shared cauldron.

Frowning, Harry turned the book back to the recipe and ran his eyes over the instructions. Once more, he found his gaze drifting back to the extra notes, and found himself frowning. He looked over to Daphne, struggling to juice the Shrivelfigs, though it seemed to be fighting her very furiously, for very little 'blood'. Sighing, Harry looked over the extra notes again, before grabbing five of the caterpillars and slicing them up.

"What are you doing?" Daphne asked, grimacing as she continued to fully juice the Shrivelfig.

"Just…" Harry muttered, before sighing and gesturing to his textbook. "Look, there's just…another way to do this, apparently. And, since you _and everyone else_ is struggling—" He gestured to the surrounding students, also struggling with their Shrivelfigs— "I figured we might as well give it a shot."

Daphne raised an eyebrow and gave the written-in notes of his textbook a cursory look. Her gaze drifted back to the Shrivelfig, and the barely even a half-teaspoon of 'blood' for her work, before sighing and falling back against the back of her seat. "Alright…but if this goes wrong, Potter, I'm blaming you."

"I wouldn't blame you if you did," Harry muttered, before adding the sliced caterpillars to the cauldron, then moving on to the next ingredient. And, after a brief moment of thinking on it, Daphne joined in.

They worked like that, glancing over the written instructions and alternating between them mostly in silence. Occasionally, Snape would walk by them, eyes narrowed on their potion before staring suspiciously at Harry. Whenever he would, though, Harry would hide the textbook—for some reason, he got the feeling he shouldn't let the greasy git see it—so, after a moment, Snape would just give Harry a stern glare before continuing on to the next pair, staying silent on his suspicions.

Half an hour before the end of class, they added the last bit of the Shrivelfig and one last caterpillar to the brew, and the potion finally turned an odd neon green color. Daphne took a step back and frowned, looking at her own textbook. "That's not what my text says the potion's supposed to look like…you'd better not have ruined this for us, Potter."

"So do I," Harry murmured, before noticing Snape walking up to them and quickly tucking his textbook into his bag.

"So, this is your potion, Potter, Ms. Greengrass?" Snape asked, stepping close and staring over it again. Frowning, he stared back up at the two of them, before turning his attention back to Harry, his sneer growing ever so slightly. "How…disappointing. Of course, I should've expected as much from you, Potter—still, I had hoped Ms. Greengrass's brilliance would outshine your own utter dullardness."

Harry clenched his fists a bit at Snape's remarks, noticed Malfoy and his cronies sneering over at him as well from at the other end of the room, and found himself speaking before he could stop himself. "You know, you're throwing around a lot of shite, _sir_, you haven't even tested to see if it works."

A sudden hush fell over the classroom, all eyes now turned to Harry, Daphne, and Snape near the back of the classroom. For a while, no one said anything—Harry and Snape just remained in a deadlock Snape's sneer twisted in disgust, and with a twirl he grabbed one of Harry's vials and dunked it into the cauldron, pulling it out filled with the neon green fluid. Scowling back at Harry, Snape turned away and carried the vial over to his desk.

"Very well then, Potter, we shall see if your potion works," he sneered.

With that, he reached into the desk and withdrew a glass bottle, within which skittered a furious scorpion. Snape turned back to sneer at Harry once more, before removing the lid and letting a single drop of the potion drip into the glass. Instantly, the scorpion dived at the potion and quickly slurped it up—being stuck in the glass for so long had left it desperate for any kind of nourishment. As soon as it had, though, the scorpion froze, flinching sporadically.

Snape's sneer widened, and he raised a vindictive sneer to Harry in triumph before his attention was torn away by a shocked gasp from one of the students nearest to his desk. Frowning, he dropped his gaze back to the glass bottle, before taking a shocked step back, his leg slamming into the table as he did.

The scorpion, once as large as his hand, was now barely larger than a thimble.

"It actually works…" Daphne muttered in shock.

"Indeed…" Snape muttered, adjusting his robes slightly, before standing straight again and giving the class a withering stare. Frowning, he strode slowly across the classroom once more, the silence returning, until he stood before Harry and Daphne's table. He shot Harry another firm glare, before turning to Daphne. "Well done, Ms. Greengrass—despite Potter's dullardness, you somehow managed to salvage the potion. Ten points to Slytherin."

Daphne blinked in surprise. "Oh, well, thank you, Professor, but Harry actually—"

"Only did whatever Greengrass told me we needed to do," Harry quickly cut in, before shooting Daphne a brief, firm glance. Daphne frowned, but kept silent. Snape, meanwhile, sneered down at Harry and nodded.

"Well then, perhaps being her partner will do you some good," he replied, before twirling his cloak behind him as he strode back to the front of the classroom. "As for the rest of you, class has ended—leave a sample of your potions on my desk, I shall grade them before we meet again."

Snape had barely finished his statement to the class before Harry had pushed up from his desk, grabbed his bag, and rushed out of the classroom. Frustration boiled under his surface, but he kept it under control until he was out in the hall, where he fell against the wall with a loud huff. Snape's reaction shouldn't have come as surprising, but still, somehow he'd imagined that if it had worked out he wouldn't be _as_ hateful as usual. Unfortunately, he'd underestimated Snape's disgust.

Sighing, he turned around as the other students walked out, and a tired smile spread across his face as he recognized Ron and Hermione walking over to him. Ron gave him a sheepish shrug and smile before clapping him on the shoulder.

"Well, looks like Snape's the same as always," he chuckled.

"As if there was any doubt in that," Harry replied with a shrug and smile. "You two do alright in there?"

"I'll admit, it could've gone better," Hermione replied with a sigh. "Ron got paired with Malfoy—it's a wonder the two didn't kill each other—meanwhile, I was paired with Parkinson, and we were able to get along long enough for us to finish the potion, but it was no small task. I doubt we'll be able to get along beyond there."

"I'd be more surprised if you did," Ron snorted, before shrugging. "Well, we're going to be heading to History. See you around lunch, mate."

Harry nodded and smiled back to Ron, waving the two of them off as the walked off, before sighing and dropping against the wall of the hall again. That was right, he still had to find Ancient Runes for his next class. Frowning, he pulled out the schedule from his bag and ran his gaze over it, his frown deepening as he noted where it was. It was quite the hike through the castle—hopefully he'd get there in time.

He paused, feeling a familiar rubbing against his leg, and looked down to see Midnight had returned to his side. "Well, good to see you're back—have fun out here, beautiful?" Harry asked with a dry chuckle, leaning down to scratch behind the familiar's ears, causing her to purr loudly.

Chuckling, Harry stood tall again, before frowning as he felt as though someone was watching him. Frowning, Harry turned around, tensing for whatever he might see, only to sigh as he noticed Daphne Greengrass watching him. "Oh, Greengrass, it's just you…" Harry sighed. "Sorry, I thought it might've been…"

"Draco?" Daphne asked, before sighing. "Don't worry, Potter, I like to imagine I'm a bit nicer than him."

"No argument from me," Harry replied with a shrug, before adjusting his bag. He frowned, looking back over to her with a small, expectant gaze. "So, I'm guessing you wanted to talk to me about something?"

Daphne nodded, sighing as well. "I just…wanted to apologize for Professor Snape back there…as well as ask why you didn't bother to correct him? I mean, it was your textbook that let us brew the potion."

Midnight seemed to perk up a bit, and her violet gaze drifted up to Daphne in intrigue.

"Okay, first, don't apologize for that greasy git—he knows what he's doing, and if he won't apologize for his behavior, his students shouldn't have to for him," Harry firmly replied. "As for why I didn't correct him…well, Greengrass, we've shared the same Potions class for two years already. I'm sure you already know he can't stand me—he wouldn't stop hating me just because I started doing well in class. Better to let you take the credit than deal with him."

Daphne raised an eyebrow in surprise, before slowly nodding. "Well, I suppose that makes sense…still, seems a bit unfair for you to get no credit at all."

"As long as I get a passing grade, I couldn't care less," Harry replied with a shrug. "Besides, I'm sure I'd have to deal with him asking about how I managed to make the potion so well, and I'd rather he not know about my textbook."

"Where did you even get that?" Daphne asked, raising an eyebrow.

Harry shrugged. "I honestly have no idea—I bought the book from Flourish and Blotts over the summer, but I don't remember it having those notes…they're not mine, that much I know for certain." He then chuckled and looked down to Midnight at his feet. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this little one was responsible for it—she always seems to bring trouble wherever she goes."

"I see," Daphne nodded slowly, her gaze drifting down to Midnight. The cat looked back at her, violet eyes locking onto hers, before she returned to rubbing against Harry's pant leg. Sighing, Daphne looked back over at Harry. "You know, you're not too bad, Potter."

Harry blinked, before smirking back at her. "You're not too bad, either, Greengrass—or, should I call you Daphne?"

"Sorry, Potter," the blonde Slytherin replied with a small smirk, "Only my friends are allowed to call me Daphne, and you've still got a long way to go until then." Still smirking, Daphne turned away and began walking off. "Now then, if you'll excuse me, I think I've stood around a bit too long—I do have Ancient Runes to get to, after all."

"Oh, you're going to Ancient Runes too?" Harry asked, falling into step beside her, his familiar easily keeping pace with him. "So am I, actually—I was just about to head there myself. Mind if I go with you?"

"You're taking Ancient Runes right now?" Daphne asked, frowning. "It's Slytherins and Hufflepuffs, though…shouldn't you be taking it a different time?"

"Believe me, I wish I could," Harry sighed. "The last thing I want is to be stuck between badgers and snakes, all on my own…but, apparently, there's no more room for me in the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw class, so I'm stuck with this one."

Daphne huffed, before shaking her head. "You know, Potter, not all Slytherins are that bad. Draco and his ilk only represent the very worst of us…there are still a fair few of us that are ambivalent or even like you in the snake's den—or at least, we'd like you if you didn't hate us in return. And Hufflepuffs are mostly nice—it's practically their most defining House trait."

"Tell that to the Hufflepuffs that harassed me last year when they thought I was the one siccing Slytherin's monster on muggleborns," Harry shrugged, before giving Daphne a wan smile. "Still, I'll keep it in mind."

"Good to know, Potter," Daphne replied with a smile in return, before turning and continuing down the hall. "And, if it helps any, perhaps I'll be willing to sit beside you in this class as well—like I said before, you're not so bad after all, Potter."

Harry smirked back at her suggestion, before adjusting his book bag and following after her down the hall and up to Ancient Runes. The rest of their walk to the class was in silence, but comfortable silence—to Harry's increasing surprise, Daphne Greengrass was surprisingly comfortable to be around. Perhaps he'd look into accepting her offer of sitting with her in Ancient Runes—after all, it wasn't as if he knew too many other students in that class.

One thing for certain, though, was that things were going to be different this year.


	6. Chap 6: Runecraft

**New chapter, coming through!**

**Hello everyone, a Lonely Lorekeeper here once again with a brand new chapter of His Loyal Pet. This is part 2 of my three-part series of chapters covering Harry's new classes and new school changes. In this chapter, we mostly cover the Ancient Runes class, which turns out to not be what I expected it to be when I planned this out. Looking up what Ancient Runes actually is turns out to be rather boring****—it's essentially just learning how to decipher ancient texts****—so I beefed it up a bit in what I had originally assumed Ancient Runes was all about.**

**I also recently found out that Bathsheda Babbling, the professor for the course, is ridiculously young. I thought this was just a fandom thing, but all of the online sources about her have no clear age, but say that she must at least be eighteen during Azkaban, since she has to be a graduate from Hogwarts to teach there. Which, to be fair, Snape did practically the same thing when he first started teaching Potions, but I always felt that was a bit of a special case because Dumbledore needed to keep him close, and really it was a stupid situation all around, and we are getting horribly side-tracked!**

**One last bit, though, before we go—I've started my own original story. It's called The Legends of Valeron: Into the Unknown, and the prologue and first chapter are up on Fictionpress and Wattpad. It's of my own creation, a fantasy-adventure inspiried by D&D and Skyrim. So, if you're interested in more of my style of writing, go and give it a read!**

**Anyways, Chapter 6! Let's go!**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Runecraft**

"Geeze, what's taking Daphne so long?"

Tracey Davis looked over the back of her chair towards the back door of the Ancient Runes classroom for what must've been the fifth time already, before turning around with a huff and flipping through her textbook, mostly out of boredom. Beside her, Blaise Zabini simply reclined lazily in his chair, a bemused smile slipping across his face at his fellow Slytherin's antics.

"She said she'd be a bit late, Davis, just be patient," he murmured in reply. "Greengrass is a big girl, she'll get here eventually."

"I know that, Blaise," Tracey huffed, rolling her eyes at the olive-skinned Italian boy beside her. "It's just, it seems like it's taking her a lot longer than it should to get here. I mean, really, Potions isn't that far from Ancient Runes, and Daphne knows her way around the school alright…I think…"

The brunette Slytherin then paled a bit, setting her textbook down on the desk with a low 'thump' and turning to Blaise with a concerned gaze. "You don't think she got lost, though, do you? I mean, I don't think she would, but it is our first day, and those stairs really aren't helping anyone."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "I highly doubt Greengrass got lost, Davis."

"Well, I know, but there's always the chance, and it would explain why it's taken her so long to get here," Tracey quickly quipped back. Frowning, she pushed back from the desk and began standing up. "Perhaps we should go look for her—we've still got a few minutes before class starts…"

"No need," Blaise suddenly stated, nodding back to the back door. "She's already here."

"Wait, really?" Tracey exclaimed, spinning back around once more.

Sure enough, Daphne Greengrass strode in through the back door of the Ancient Runes classroom, not looking the least bit worse for wear since Potions class had ended, alleviating Tracey's worries of her best friend getting lost. However, several other questions were then raised as she noticed that the blonde Slytherin had not arrived alone—in fact, walking rather in step with her was someone that made Tracey's head spin more than just a bit.

"Is that…Potter?" Tracey asked, bewilderment flavoring the name.

Blaise raised an eyebrow and turned around in his seat to look back towards the back of the classroom, before turning back around to his textbook once more. "It appears so," he simply stated.

"But what is he doing here—this is a Slytherin and Hufflepuff period, not Slytherin and Gryffindor," Tracey murmured, leaning towards Blaise and keeping her voice low as the two of them approached. "And why is he walking with Daphne? Did they run into each other on the way up? Maybe they both got held back by Snape because of their potion? Or maybe…you don't think she fancies him, do you?"

Blaise paused, blinking for a moment, before shrugging and looking back to his textbook. "Stranger things have happened."

"Seriously?" Tracey asked, whirling on Blaise, before huffing quietly. "You're not helping much, you know."

"When has he ever?" Daphne asked as she walked up to the table with Tracey and Blaise, dropping her bookbag down on the desk and sitting down beside her childhood friend. "Sorry for taking so long, I had a few things I wanted to ask Potter about after Snape's class—this is Potter, by the way, I'm sure you know of him. Potter, say hello to my friends."

Harry rolled his eyes at Daphne's introduction and dropped down into the seat beside her. "Hello Davis, Zabini—hope you don't mind me joining your group for the moment, Greengrass suggested I could sit with her since I have no one to sit with in this class."

Tracey simply stared owlishly over at Harry for a moment, her chocolate-caramel eyes blinking slowly, before turning to look at Daphne with a slightly more—but only slightly more—firm stare. "Daphne…what the fuck?"

At that, Blaise finally broke from his calm persona, and let out a brief, puffing chuckle before shaking his head. "Thank you, Davis, for saying what was on both of our minds," he murmured, before turning back to Daphne and resting his cheek on his knuckles as he stared over at er. "Though, I think I stand with Davis here, Greengrass. What's going on?"

Daphne rolled her eyes and turned away, pulling out her textbook and some parchment to write with. "Like I said, I'm letting Potter sit with us. For some Merlin-be-damned reason, he decided to switch classes last minute, so he's in our class instead of the other one with the rest of his Gryffindor pride that he could mingle with. I figured, since he was so useful in Potions class, perhaps he'll be useful in Ancient Runes, too."

"You do realize that I've never taken this class, right? As opposed to being moderately decent in Potions," Harry pointed out, as he too pulled out his textbook and laid it out on the desk, Midnight hopping up onto the desk and laying down by his arm.

"He's even admitting he's not that good, Daphne!" Tracey exclaimed, huffing and crossing her arms. "And anyways, I thought you Gryffindors couldn't stand us snakes—wouldn't you much rather be sitting with the Hufflepuffs instead of us?"

"Other than Justin, I don't know any of them," Harry replied with a shrug, before looking back over at the group. "And even then, after last year, I don't think that would be a good option." He turned back to Tracey again with a bit of a frown. "Besides, I don't hate Slytherins—just Malfoy and his crew. Though, if it bothers you so much, I suppose I could go somewhere else…"

"No, you don't, Tracey's just a bit overprotective, that's all." Daphne cut in, looking over to her friend with a reassuring smile, before looking back to Harry and giving him a small shrug. "And anyways, you proved to be more than moderately decent last class, Potter—perhaps you'll come around and surprise us again."

Harry rolled his eyes, though a smile slipped onto his face at the same time. "You know, it wouldn't kill you to admit you're just being nice."

"Au contraire, Potter," Blaise suddenly spoke up, leaning back in his seat pointing over to Harry with a bemused smirk on his face. "Clearly, you do not know our dear Greengrass here all that well."

"I guess not," Harry replied with a shrug. "Still, she's nice enough that I don't mind sitting with her."

Tracey eyed Harry closely from around Daphne sitting between them, still a bit unsure about the Gryffindor joining their group. Her gaze caught Harry's, though, and after a moment she finally relented and sat back in her seat with a sigh, returning to her flippant page-flipping. "Alright, fine, you can sit with us, Potter—just try not to drag us down, alright?"

"You know, Greengrass said the same thing back in Potions," he pointed out.

Before anyone else could say anything further, the door towards the front of the classroom swung open, and a sudden silence fell over the classroom. Out of the doorway stepped a short, auburn-haired witch—one that looked surprisingly young, as she couldn't be more than a few years older than the students in the class. Her hair was pulled back in a single long dutch braid, and she wore odd hexagonal-shaped glasses upon her face, framing her grey-blue eyes that gleamed as she looked over the gathered students.

"Welcome to Ancient Runes," the witch stated, her voice having a light, surprising chirp to its tone as she walked over to the lectern at the front of the classroom. "I am Professor Bathsheda Babbling, and I shall be your guide for the next few years through the ancient art that is runeology and runecraft."

"Ancient Runes is a woefully overlooked subject by much of Wizarding society," Professor Babbling stated, letting her gaze wander over the students looking back at her. "In today's Wizarding culture, it's often simplified down to nothing more than studying and deciphering the ancient runes that wizards used centuries ago. And, while that in its own right can be very useful and important, there is so much more to Ancient Runes than simply learning how to read and write in ancient symbols."

With that, the witch turned around to the blackboard behind her and pulled a long, white piece of chalk from one of the pockets of her robes and began writing quickly down several notes. Instantly, the whole room was a bustle of sounds as the young students pulled out their parchments, inkbottles, and quills to write down what Professor Babbling was saying.

"Beyond simply understanding how to decipher and decrypt ancient runes, this class also teaches runeology and runecraft," Professor Babbling stated, turning back from the blackboard and gesturing to the notes she'd written out for them—two columns, each headed with the two words she'd stated. "Runeology is the study of the power that resides within each separate rune and how those runes can be set up in such a way as to create spells and wards. Runecraft, meanwhile, is the actual creation and deconstruction of those spells and wards."

As the students jotted down her words, one of the other students—a Hufflepuff girl with dark red hair—raised a hand. "What do you mean, construction of spells, Professor Babbling? Isn't that what we're already doing in Charms?"

"An excellent question, Ms. Bones," Professor Babbling replied with a sharp chirp, "and I'm glad you asked that! The answer is charms are much more instantaneous and, therefore, require a decent amount of magical fortitude to summon up. It is because of their suddenness and how quickly they can be pulled up that they are the preferred weapon of duelists in combat, and average witches and wizards in their everyday lives. It's what's simple, easy, and fast."

"Runic arrays, however, take a lot more time to create, but conversely also last for much longer." Babbling turned back to her blackboard and began drawing up a runic array in a large circle. "They also require a decent amount of magical fortitude to activate, like charms, but once activated, they can last for centuries, as long as they have some constant connection to a magical source, such as a leyline. It's because of this that runic arrays are often used in the traps that protect and preserve ancient tombs—they last for an incredibly long time."

"In addition, runic arrays can allow you to create practically whatever spell you want, exactly the way you want it." Professor Babbling began circling certain runes in the array and jotting down notes of what they did. "Once you understand what runes mean what, and how they interact with each other, you can—hypothetically—create any spell you need. It requires a lot of experimentation, and can be a bit dangerous at times, but it's much more successful than simply attempting to create an entire new spell from scratch."

Once she was done drawing up her array, Professor Babbling turned back to the class and continued. "On a less dangerous, more mundane note, wizard inventors often use runic arrays when creating certain household amenities, such as self-cleaning sinks, self-writing quills, and riding brooms. So, you can see, the study of runeology and runecraft is much more useful than the modern wizarding world gives it credit for."

At the mention of riding brooms, Harry sat up a bit straighter in his seat. He'd never really thought of it before, but it made sense that brooms would be enchanted to fly through some manner other than simply spells. And the mention of creating his own spells with runic arrays sounded very interesting as well, though he wasn't sure quite yet how he would use them.

At his side, Midnight's tail flicked back and forth, and her violet eyes stared up at her master's face, a sort of smug satisfaction gleaming in her iridescent gaze.

"Of course," Professor Babbling continued, turning to the blackboard and spinning it around so that the other side was facing towards the class—this side covered with dozens of different ancient runes and symbols— "you can only pursue these fields of Ancient Runes once you've learned what each rune means—how to translate and read them. So, that will be the focus of this year of Ancient Runes—teaching each of you what each rune is, what it means, and what it can be used for. Once you understand that, we will be able to move on to actually utilizing these runes."

With that, Professor Babbling turned and pointed to the blackboard once more. "To start you all off, I have listed here several different runic arrays, each of which have a different function when drawn out and activated. For this class period, I want each of you to divide up into pairs to decipher the runic arrays listed on the board and attempt to figure out what spell each is supposed to replicate."

Professor Babbling then gave the students in the class a firm look. "And try not to just partner up with your own Housemates—if you only work with people in your own house, you'll never get to know anyone else. We've got four Slytherins, a Gryffindor, and five Hufflepuffs in this class, so try and meet someone new this class session."

Justin Finch-Fletchley raised his hand suddenly. "Wait, a Gryffindor? Who?"

Instantly, the other Hufflepuffs looked around curiously, before finally noticing Harry sitting with Daphne and her friends. Harry immediately sank a bit in his chair—he'd been hoping he wouldn't have to have his odd schedule brought to the attention of the class, but clearly that simply wasn't going to happen. To be completely honest, though, he wasn't that surprised that it hadn't gone his way.

Daphne, meanwhile, was looking around for the fourth Slytherin—she found it in Millicent Bulstrode, who was sitting at the very back of the classroom on their side. As soon as the two locked eyes, Millicent seemed to curl in on herself, almost ashamed at being found out. Daphne couldn't blame her, actually—the larger girl wasn't exactly known for her brilliance, so she was surprised to see Millicent in a class like Ancient Runes.

Professor Babbling ignored all of this happening in her class and moved back to her desk off to the side of the front of the classroom. "Go ahead and find your partner from across the House divide, and you may begin."

Harry grimaced, and looked over hopefully to Daphne. Unfortunately, before he could even say anything, Tracey suddenly reached out and wrapped an arm around Daphne's shoulders. "Oh no, Potter, Daphne and me go way back, and she's my partner nine times out of ten, and this is one of the nine. You had her in Potions, I get my turn in Ancient Runes."

Daphne rolled her eyes at her friend's antics, before giving Harry a small shrug. "Perhaps we'll be able to work together some other time, Potter?" she suggested.

"Yeah, maybe," Harry glumly replied, before craning back behind Daphne and looking over to Blaise. "What about you, Zabini?"

Blaise, however, was already getting up and gathering his things. "Sorry, Potter, but I'm actually going to go over and work with Smith." He gestured over to Zacharias Smith, sitting with the other Hufflepuffs, who looked over to Blaise and gave him a brief, casual wave. Blaise responded with a nod, before moving out from around the desk and over to the Hufflepuff.

Harry sighed, looking around for other classmates he could work with. There was a Hufflepuff girl that was getting out of her desk, but before he could even move towards her, she'd walked back towards the back of the classroom and sat down next to Millicent Bullstrode, much to the larger girl's surprise. The only other students left were Justin Finch-Fletchley, who walked up to another Hufflepuff girl—one with honey-colored hair—before walking off with her to another corner of the room, and the red-headed Bones girl.

Sighing, Harry sat up from his seat, gathering his supplies, and walked over to the red-haired girl's side. "Mind if I join you?" he asked a bit awkwardly to get her attention.

The girl looked up from her own parchment and textbook—she'd already written down the first array and had started decrypting it—and looked back up at Harry with a start. Harry took a moment to get a better look at her—her hair was a much richer, darker shade than the Weasleys, and she had soft, gentle grey eyes. And that wasn't all that was soft about her—even with the drab Hogwarts robes on, Harry could tell she had a fairly curvy figure for her age.

"Oh, sure," the girl finally replied with a quick nod, moving some of her supplies to the side and giving Harry some room to sit. "Go right ahead—I'm Susan Bones, by the way."

"Harry Potter," Harry replied as he sat down and set his supplies back out—and as Midnight hopped back up onto the desk beside him— "Though, I suppose you might already know that by now, I guess…"

To his surprise—and relief, honestly—Susan laughed at his dry remark and nodded. "I think I might've heard a thing or two about you in the past few years, actually. Youngest seeker in a century, the Heir of Slytherin, Gryffindor golden boy, and of course the 'boy-who-lived'…" She smiled softly over at him. "Got quite a name for yourself there, Harry."

"Trust me, I wish I didn't," Harry replied with a sigh, before smiling over at the black cat slinking closer to him and resting a hand on its back. "Oh, and this is Midnight, my familiar."

"Oh! You have a familiar!" Susan exclaimed, staring down at Midnight in surprise. "She's beautiful—I've never seen a familiar before, they're supposed to be very rare, only the strongest of wizards and witches can actually make familiars."

Harry blushed a bit at Susan's compliment and shrugged. "Well, maybe it's a bit easier the way that I looked up." Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the arrays she had written out already. "Anyways, what are do we have so far?"

Susan smiled, moving the paper between the two of them so they could both look at it. "Well, these are the arrays the professor wrote down—the table of runes is about fifteen pages into the textbook, so you can work off of that."

Nodding, Harry turned to his textbook and flipped it open to the suggested page—and instantly froze.

Once more, the margins and edges of his textbook's pages were utterly filled with notes and suggestions written in a fanciful, elegant handwriting—the same handwriting that had graced his Potion's textbook. Harry blinked in surprise, before leaning over and pulling out his Potions book and opening it to the first page. Despite the extra notes that had seemingly come from nowhere, he still recognized his untidy scrawl written in the upper-left corner of the first page, meaning that these were indeed still his books.

But then…where had the notes come from?

His eyes narrowed, remembering back to Riddle's diary from the previous year. Frowning, he withdrew his wand from his ropes and tentatively poked the textbook. He wasn't certain what he was hoping for, really—maybe the notes would move if he tapped them, or maybe he'd get a feeling. Nothing happened, though—the textbook remained an ordinary textbook, aside from the elegantly written notes.

"Something wrong, Harry?" Susan asked, looking back over to her partner a moment.

Harry shook his head of his situation and looked back to her, before sheepishly slipping his Potions book back into his bag and turning his runes book back to the table of runes Susan had pointed out. "No, no, sorry, just got a little bit distracted for a moment," he murmured, looking down at the runic arrays a moment. "Now, where were we?"

Unlike the Shrinking Potion in the Potions class earlier, the notes in Harry's Ancient Runes textbook didn't seem to have anything that could help with the activity at the moment. Instead, they were all suggested runic arrays for specific spells or effects—as well as a short explanation of how the runes interacted with each other, and suggestions on how they could be altered and improved. Something that he was sure to pay attention to, still, just not at the moment.

However, while they didn't instantly make the class easier for him, they did give him a good idea of how the arrays on the board were supposed to work. Once he and Susan had managed to decipher the arrays, one by one, they would discuss what they were supposed to be based off of the runes used. Every so often, Harry would glance back to the notes, then back to Susan with a suggestion, and they'd run it through.

After about an hour of pouring over the runic arrays and throwing around their suggestions of what the arrays could each be, Harry felt fairly certain they'd gotten them all. There was a one based off of a cleaning charm, and was probably attached to those self-cleaning house tools Professor Babbling had mentioned. The next was a hover charm, again likely for the broomsticks she'd mentioned, and the third was a disarming spell.

The lists continued like that the rest of the way down, and while he and Susan had disagreed here or there on what they each meant—especially on the last one—they finally wrote down the last array just as the professor walked back up to the front of the classroom, over to her lectern, and drew their attention with a quick wave of her wand, making a small banging sound echo around the room.

"Alright then, the class is almost over," Professor Babbling stated, looking back to the large clock on the wall, "So, I would like each of you to drop off your arrays up here, and I will have them returned to you when we next meet! And don't forget the homework I left on the board—I want three pages by then."

Harry glanced at the board and sighed—they were supposed to look up the arrays listed on the pages written on the board and explain the runes each were composed of and hypothesize how each would work. Groaning, Harry grabbed his books and papers and began shoving them back into his bookbag. "Lovely," he murmured, grabbing their paper and turning to Susan, "I'll run this up for us."

"Oh, alright," Susan replied, blinking up at Harry—when he hadn't been looking, she'd been petting Midnight behind the ears, the black cat getting surprisingly friendly to her over the course of the class. However, her had quickly pulled back and she grabbed her things. "I suppose I'll be off then—it was nice working with you today, Harry."

Harry smiled in reply as he watched the curvy redhead turn and hurry out of the classroom, falling into step beside the honey-haired girl from before. Sighing, he turned away and hurried back to the front of the classroom, dropping his paper off on the top of the stack in front of the professor. Then, noticing he was the last one left, he quickly mumbled a 'have a good day' to her and turned to hurry out and head off to the great hall for lunch.

He missed how the professor's gaze drifted down to his last array—the one that had bothered him and Susan so much—and her pleasant smile dropped suddenly. Before she could call out to him on it, though, Harry had already walked out, the door slamming shut behind him.

By the time Harry made his way down from the Ancient Runes classroom, lunch had already started out in the great hall. He saw Daphne and her friends sitting together at the Slytherin table, and Susan was sitting with the honey-haired girl over at the Hufflepuff table. Susan, as it happened, caught sight of Harry and gave him a smile, which he sheepishly returned, before he quickly turned and hurried over to the Gryffindor table.

He missed the look the honey-haired girl gave him and Susan, as well as the sudden blush that spread across the redhead's face at whatever the honey-haired girl had said.

Harry quickly moved over to sit beside Ron and Hermione, who had left him his usual spot for him. Ron was busy working his way through his plate of roast beef sandwiches, while Hermione was lightly nipping at a chicken salad sandwich as she read from her Arithmancy textbook. They both still looked a bit bedraggled from their History of Magic class, Hermione—oddly—more so than Ron.

"Hello, Harry," Hermione sighed, looking up from her book to give him a small smile. "How was Ancient Runes?"

"Fine," Harry replied with a shrug, grabbing a few sandwiches himself. "Better than I was expecting, at least—though, there was something odd…"

"You mean, besides the fact that you were the only Gryffindor in the classroom?" Ron asked between bites.

Harry nodded, and reached to his bag for a moment, before pausing. The textbooks seemed fairly useful, honestly, and he'd already confirmed to himself that they weren't like Riddle's diary from second year. He really didn't need to tell them about it—he didn't even want to think how Hermione might react to it. Even without it being like Riddle's diary, she'd likely still try and get him to turn it in to Professor McGonagall for inspection.

Frowning, he shook his head, and sat back up again. "Just the teacher, you know," Harry finally stated with a shrug. "Her style of teaching is a bit different, you know? And, she's surprisingly young, isn't she?"

"From what I hear, Professor Babbling actually graduated the year before we started attending," Hermione pointed out, turning the page of her textbook and not noticing Harry's slightly odd tone. "She's supposedly a prodigy of runecraft, she has a very clear understanding and aptitude for runes—it's no wonder that right after she graduated, Professor Dumbledore offered her the job for Ancient Runes. And I don't know if I'd say her style of teaching is so different, I'm sure it suits her quite well."

Harry frowned and raised an eyebrow at his bushy-haired friend. "Have you had her yet?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, but I've heard about her from some of the other Gryffindors—the older years that have had her say that she's really wonderful to learn from, though she can be a bit difficult at times. I can't wait to work with her, though—I have her tomorrow after lunch."

Ron paused, his last sandwich halfway to his mouth, before he blinked and slowly set it back down onto his plate. "Hang on…" he muttered, turning a bewildered gaze over to Hermione, the gears almost visibly spinning in his head. "Care of Magical Creatures is after lunch tomorrow—aren't you taking that, too?"

"Yes, of course," Hermione sharply stated, though if Harry or Ron were looking closely, they'd notice her cheeks were turning a bit pink.

"But…that's crazy, Hermione!" Harry exclaimed. "How do you expect to attend Care of Magical Creatures _and_ Ancient Runes? It's not like you can be in two places at once."

"I have my ways," Hermione replied simply, which sent a bit of a shiver down Harry's back. He did not want to know exactly what 'her ways' might be.

"Well, I don't know what 'your ways' might be, but I hope you know what you're doing," Ron stated with a shrug. "And, besides, it's not as if you're doubling up through the whole schedule."

Hermione was silent a moment, and Harry groaned at the look on her face. "Oh, Hermione, you can't be serious!"

"Oh come on, it's not that bad!" Hermione tried to say.

"Not that bad? Hermione, how many classes are you taking? There's no way that you'll be able to handle that many classes—especially when you think about how much homework you're going to have to work through! I know you like learning and studying here, Hermione, but Merlin! You're going to run yourself ragged trying to keep up with all of your homework!"

Hermione slapped her textbook shut as she looked over to Harry and Ron. "I can handle it," she simply stated, though her face clearly stated how done she was with this 'discussion'. "Professor McGonagall is helping me through this, and if I've been able to help the both of you with homework and still have time for my own, I think I can handle a bit more homework from each of the classes."

Harry and Ron exchanged a look, before finally shrugging and sighing. "If you say so," they both replied, slumping back in their seats.

"I do," Hermione stated with a nod, before slipping her book back into her bag and standing up. "Now then, I think it's time we got to class—come on, Harry, we've got Arithmancy to get to now."

Nodding, Harry picked up his own bag and gave Ron quick clap on the shoulder before following Hermione out of the great hall. He had to wait a moment as she ran to the bathroom, but the two of them quickly headed out again once she was out. Harry idly noted she seemed a bit…odd, when she'd walked out, but he tried not to think too much of it.

Still, there was certainly something odd with Hermione this year.

* * *

The rest of the day went rather unimpressively, and before long Harry found himself meandering over to his fourposter bed in the Gryffindor dorms, ready for bed. Exhaustion had rolled over him like a wave once dinner had rolled around, and it had taken him all the energy he had left to work through his homework that evening, before he'd finally called it quits and trundled back off to bed.

Arithmancy had been a rather simple affair—it turned out it was a more mathematical, logical version of Divination, if anything, so he could see how Hermione was so much more drawn to it. Though, from what Ron had mentioned, Hermione had been at the Divination class as well, where she'd often pointed out the logical inconsistencies the Divination teacher spouted. It made Harry wonder, once more, just how Hermione was managing to juggle both classes at the same time.

From what Ron said, juggling Divination wasn't going to be too hard, though, so he let it slide.

After Arithmancy, they'd all met up in their first Transfiguration class of the year, where they were learning how to transfigure more complex animals into ordinary objects, as opposed to beetles into buttons or needles into millipedes. She'd paused only a moment to assuage the fears of those who'd come from Divination just before—apparently, whoever the professor for that class was, she had a nasty habit of predicting a student's death on the first day of class each year.

Much to no one's surprise—or at least, not to Harry, Hermione, and Ron—she had predicted Harry's grisly death would occur before the year was through. That, among other nerve-wracking predictions, had rattled the students, but it was clear that McGonagall held far less belief in them than her students. After a few sharp words of comfort and consternation, the class had continued as intended.

Harry frowned as his thoughts turned back to those classes, and the textbooks he'd had for the both of them. Like with Potions and with Ancient Runes, both the Arithmancy and Transfiguration textbooks had been riddled with notes and suggestions in that mysterious-but-growing-familiar handwriting. He did admit, he enjoyed having the notes to work with—they made his classes much easier, to the point that he was holding his own against even Hermione—but he couldn't get the thought of them out of his head.

Where had they come from? The writing hadn't been in his textbooks when he'd bought them, and they hadn't been there at all that summer—just the morning before, he'd finished reading through another of the textbooks, and there had been no sign of any notes then. They hadn't shown up until that morning, when…

Harry paused, and his eyes opened wide.

When the two extra textbooks had shown up that morning. Just as the elegantly written notes had suddenly appeared from seemingly nowhere, so too had his two textbooks that Midnight had brought his attention to that morning. She'd brought him those textbooks—or, at least, he assumed she'd brought them to him, it was all that made sense. If that was so, though…perhaps bringing him the textbooks wasn't the only thing the familiar had done.

Harry glanced over at Midnight, who was laying down at the foot of his bed, curled up in a small ball. Frowning, he set his stuff to the side and slowly crouched down on the bed and moved towards her, running his hands over her soft fur to get her attention. The black cat stirred, her violet eyes gleaming in the dark of the dorm, and she looked up at him.

"Midnight," Harry murmured, grabbing his Ancient Runes textbook and flipping it open, pointing to the notes written in the margins. "Did you do this? Did you leave these notes?"

He felt completely foolish doing this—after all, she was just a cat. Perhaps she was a bit smarter than most, and had done a lot of odd things over the summer, but it didn't change the fact that she was still just a regular cat. His certainty about how foolish he was only grew stronger as his familiar stared back at him, her violet eyes staring deep into his emerald gaze though giving away nothing.

Finally, just when he was about ready to accept that he was going crazy and pull away from harassing his familiar, Midnight suddenly moved forward and began patting the textbook, making the pages flip quickly. Harry scooted back and watched, more surprised than anything else, as the cat began flipping the pages quickly, before finally ending on the inside cover. Once there, Midnight turned her gaze back up to Harry and patted at the page, mewling softly.

Harry looked between his familiar and the textbook a moment, before picking the textbook up and looking at the inner cover. There were more notes written here in than same elegant scrawl—just a few, and they made Harry's heart pound in his chest.

_My dear Harry,_

_I know you do not know me yet—not wholly know me yet, at least—but I know you. I know the kind of man you are, or what sort of man you are destined to be, and I want to help you become that and more. So, I've left my notes in this, and the rest, of your textbooks, to give you a helping hand in your studies. You will become someone great, my dear Harry, and I hope my notes will be able to help you become the powerful wizard that I am sure you will be, when we finally do meet._

_I hope you enjoy my notes, my dear Harry, and we shall meet each other very soon._

_Your loyal pet,_

_BB_

Harry stared stunned at the short message, running his eyes over the words as he tried to make sense of what they all meant. After a moment, though, he sagged back in his seat, a few particular phrases sticking out to him. They sounded very familiar, reminding him back to the train ride the other day, and the odd dream-vision that he'd experienced after the Dementor attack.

_My dear Harry_…_meet each other very soon_…Those were the same phrases that the woman from his dream had spoken to him. Harry blushed just thinking of her—though she herself had not appeared, his dreams the other night had still been haunted by her presence, and he felt himself drawing towards her—he even thought he actually felt her in his arms at one point in the night, as odd as it sounded.

Harry blushed at the thoughts of his dreams, before turning back to his familiar, who was watching him. "Midnight…" he started slowly, pointing to the notes in the textbook again. "Did you…did you get this from…someone else? A woman with…black hair and purple eyes?"

Though he couldn't be entirely certain at the moment, Harry would swear that Midnight seemed to wink at him, before simply laying back down on the bed and mewling up at him. Sighing, Harry ran a hand through his hair, closing his textbook and slipping it back into his bookbag. He supposed that would be all the answer he'd be able to get out of her, though it was more of an answer than what he'd been expecting.

Still, he had no idea just who this woman was. It was clear that she was interested in him, but why? And how did she even get his familiar to do this for her—get him these books and notes? Midnight obviously trusted her, so he supposed he could trust her too—after all, his familiar had never led him astray so far—but it still piqued his curiosity, and he couldn't get his mind off of her as he laid back down to sleep in his bed once more, setting his glasses down on the nearby bedside table.

One thing, though, was certain, as Harry slowly dipped down into his dreams, which would likely once more be filled with visions of the mysterious and bewitching woman.

He was definitely not telling Ron or Hermione about the book now.


	7. Chap 7: Creatures

**Guess who's back, back again?**

**Hello everyone, the Lonely Lorekeeper is here once more with another chapter of His Loyal Pet. I know this is a quick update, but that is because I've recently set up a new system for myself. Specifically, I've recently decided to write 1,000 words a day for each of my stories I'm writing right now. This means that—if I'm able to keep to this schedule, which is still questionable as it _is_ writing 3,000 words a day, divided between three stories****—I should be able to get new chapters out once a week from now on.**

**Also, because of this schedule, this story is coming out the same time as To Date a Metamorph's Chapter 12, and The Legends of Valeron: Into the Unknown's Chapter 2. TDaMM is here on Fanfiction, while TLoV is over on my Fictionpress account under the same name, and over on Wattpad. Go ahead and give them a read too****—especially The Legends of Valeron, it is my passion project of the past five years and I'm so happy to finally be writing it at last!**

**Anyways, this chapter is the longest chapter I've ever written for damn near anything, so...enough jibber-jabber, and enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Creatures**

The second day back to Hogwarts began a fair bit calmer than the first day had. Harry didn't awake to his familiar trashing any more of his textbooks in an attempt to get him to take a different course, and he didn't have to try to convince Professor McGonagall to let him change his schedule. In fact, aside from Ron nearly having a panic attack as Crookshanks and Midnight both chased Scabbers around the common room—much to the amusement of Dean and Seamus—the morning of their second day was a surprisingly quiet affair.

At least, for the first half—the only real disturbance had been when Hagrid had ambled by their table with an invitation to visit him for lunch before they would go out for his first lesson of Care of Magical Creatures. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all eagerly accepted the half-giant's invitations, bringing a smile to Hagrid's thickly-bearded face, and the peace of the table settled back into place as they discussed their plans for the day.

That changed, however, during the back half of breakfast.

As Harry helped himself to a second helping of sausage and biscuits and attempted to ignore Ron's constant muttering of his and Hermione's cats being complete murder machines as he cradled Scabbers close to his chest, he got a strange feeling as though he was being watched. Frowning, he looked around, before noticing Professor Babbling up at the head table looking at him through her hexagonally-shaped glasses.

Harry stared back, and that seemed to be some trigger for the auburn-haired professor, as she quickly stood from the head table and, after excusing herself from the two professors to either side of her—Vector and Sinestra, the Arithmancy and Astronomy teachers, respectively—she began making her way around the head table in a hurried manner.

"That's odd," Harry wondered aloud, turning back to his biscuits and coating one in a strawberry jam. To either side of him, Ron and Hermione looked over at him in befuddlement.

"What's odd?" Hermione asked.

"Professor Babbling," Harry stated, gesturing with a nod of his head towards the front of the great hall. "She was watching me there for a bit—not like how Snape or Quirrell, or even how Lockhart would, but still…it was a bit odd…"

Ron frowned as well, and turned back to his plate of sausage and bacon before giving his friend a shrug. "It is a bit odd…wonder what she wanted…"

"I think we're about to find out," Hermione pointed out, gesturing to the end of Gryffindor table.

Harry and Ron turned to look where Hermione was pointing, instantly catching sight of the Ancient Runes professor walking briskly down the length of the great hall, alongside Gryffindor table, with Susan Bones following close behind. Harry sat a bit straighter in his seat as she approached—she had a troubled expression on her face, from what he could tell, and it made him a bit uneasy.

"Mr. Potter," Professor Babbling finally spoke, standing behind the trio of students, "I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time?"

Harry blinked and looked between the professor, Susan, and his friends to either side of him. Technically, he didn't have too much time to talk—Herbology was the first class of the day, so they would have to hurry off and grab the equipment they'd need for the class. Still, he had about a half hour before the class actually started, so…

"Uh, sure," Harry nodded, standing up from Gryffindor table.

Professor Babbling nodded curtly back to him. "Good, good—and don't worry about your next class, I'll send a message to your professor letting them know you've been momentarily excused."

With that, the auburn witch turned away and began briskly walking out of the great hall, gesturing for Harry and Susan to follow. Harry shared an anxious glance with the redhead beside him before he followed after her, ignoring the stares from the other students around them. Once out of the great hall, they began making their way towards a nearby set of stairs, and Harry quickly realized that they were heading up towards the Ancient Runes classroom.

Once inside the classroom, Professor Babbling hurried toward her desk, Harry and Susan following behind her a slower pace. "Do you have any idea what this is about?" Harry murmured to Susan, keeping his voice low.

Susan shook her head. "No—Professor Babbling didn't tell me anything other than to come follow her."

Harry frowned, coming to a stop at the front desk and looked back to Professor Babbling as she busied about. He felt something brush up against him, and looked to see Midnight perching on the desk beside him, blinking up at him with her bright violet eyes. Harry sighed and gently scratched behind her ears, making the cat purr softly. The sound rushed over him, and it eased his tension, though only a bit.

Looking back to the professor, Harry furrowed his brow in confusion and his hand petting Midnight moved a bit slower as he thought. If it had just been him, he would've assumed this meeting was about his sudden addition to her class, and perhaps her attempting to find a better solution. But with Susan here, that possibility quickly fell away—there had to be some other reason for why she was wanting to meet with them…but what?

The answer came in the form of Professor Babbling turning around at her desk and slapping down a stack of parchments that Harry recognized as the assignments from class the day before. The professor hurriedly flicked through the stack of parchments before pulling free a familiar sheet and laying it out before Harry and Susan, looking up at the two of them with as composed an expression as she could hold.

"This is your paper from yesterday, correct?" the professor asked, gesturing to the paper before the two of them.

Harry glanced over it quickly, recognizing his handwriting straight away—he'd been the one writing their answers down. "Yeah, that's ours," he replied, looking back to Professor Babbling.

Professor Babbling nodded back to him, adjusting the hexagonal glasses on the bridge of her nose as she did. "Well, then, I have a question for the both of you about that last question—"

"Oh, did we get it wrong?" Susan asked, worry flashing across her face. "I remember us having a bit of trouble with it when we got to it…"

"No, quite the opposite, actually," Professor Babbling stated, looking at both of them with an incredulous gaze. "And that is what is so surprising! The array at the end was one of my own creation. The array is supposed to create a barrier that grows stronger the more spells are thrown against it. It's rather advanced, so I tack it on to the end of my first assignment just as a baseline to see how much the students understand, as well as to show them just how complex these arrays get. I wasn't expecting anyone to translate it so correctly, and—"

Professor Babbling smacked the parchment, her finger jabbing at the final question and making Harry and Susan jump slightly in surprise. "I certainly didn't expect it to be a pair of third year students who've only just begun to learn runeology! You two are quite the pair, apparently."

Harry blinked in surprise. Of all the things that he could be called away for, praise for how well he'd done on an assignment was not one he expected that often. He certainly wasn't expecting to have done so well in Runes of all things—certainly, the notes from his mysterious dream woman helped here and there, but compared to Transfiguration and Potions, that help had been far more subjective, as he'd still had to do a lot of thinking himself. So, for him to have gotten it right, as well as for it to have been so difficult, came as quite the shock.

Susan seemed rather stunned as well, though her face quickly pinked as she replied to Professor Babbling. "O-oh, thank you, Professor—but, actually, Harry was the one that really finally solved the array in the end. I got about half of it done but got a bit lost in the weeds after that."

Once more, Harry blinked in surprise—though, this time, at the red-haired girl beside him. Before he could say anything, though, Professor Babbling snapped her attention to him. "Is this true, Mr. Potter? You were the one who solved my array?"

Harry stared back at his professor, her silvery-blue eyes staring at him with a mixture of bewilderment, respect, and scrutinizing curiosity. Harry blushed a bit under the teacher's shrewd stare, before finally nodding. "Uh, yes, Professor—after me and Susan worked over it together, I was the one who managed to connect the dots on what it was supposed to do."

From behind her hexagonal shaped glasses, Professor Babbling's eyes gleamed. "Well, then," the professor stated, adjusting her glasses as she looked back at them, "it seems you are quite talented in the runic arts, Mr. Potter. You too, Ms. Bones—even to get the first half translated is no small task, and I'm sure the two of you worked well off of each other in figuring this out. Ten points to both Hufflepuff and Gryffindor for teamwork and cleverness."

The two students were stunned once more—though, their surprise quickly shifted to joy and pride as they beamed back at their professor. Professor Babbling beamed back at them as well, taking their assignment back and filing it with the rest of their class's.

"I'm very impressed by the two of you, especially you, Mr. Potter," Professor Babbling suddenly stated, making Harry perk up a bit in interest. "I must admit, I was surprised to hear you were changing your schedule and picking up my class, but to see what you've been able to accomplish is truly impressive. Whatever made you decide to change and pick up Ancient Runes?"

For a moment, Harry thought of simply replying with 'my cat told me to do it', but realized saying so would be incredibly foolish. Instead, Harry shrugged and replied, "It just felt like a good fit—besides, I was getting a bad feeling from Divination."

"Hannah told me about that," Susan suddenly spoke up, looking to Harry. "Hufflepuffs have Divination the same time as Gryffindors, and she said Professor Trelawney is pretty crazy—and a lot of her lesson just had to do with doom and gloom predictions, nothing really fun."

"Such is the sentiment many students end up having before the year is through," Professor Babbling replied with a nod, before turning back to Harry. "Well, whatever your reason was for joining our class, I think I agree in that it was a good fit—I expect many great things from you, Mr. Potter."

"You two should be proud—you're the only ones in your year so far to get that question right," she commented, smiling back at Harry and Susan. "If you either of you decided to pursue runecraft seriously, I have no doubt you could be incredibly gifted in the field. In fact, if you ever do decide to go a bit further into the art, you can always swing by my office—I'd be more than happy to help you bounce ideas and figure things out."

Nodding, she picked up the stack of papers and nodded back to the back of the classroom. "Now then, best be on your way—you've got a class to get to, I believe, yes?"

Harry nodded back to her. "Right—thanks, Professor Babbling."

With that, Harry and Susan turned and quickly walked out of the classroom, letting Professor Babbling get back to rearranging the classroom and likely get it ready for the students that would show up for their first class of the day. Speaking of—Harry checked a nearby clock and frowned. They were due down in the greenhouses fairly soon, they would have to run if they were going to get to Herbology in time.

"We should hurry," Susan suddenly stated, walking quite a fair bit brisker and looking back to him with a nod. "Don't want to be late, do we?"

Harry shook his head, falling into the same brisk step beside Susan. He then frowned as he looked over at her, ducking his head down a bit as he spoke up. "By the way, uh, Bones, thanks for speaking up back there. I mean, you didn't have to make it sound like I did so much—I really just came up with the last bit right at the end, but…"

Susan looked back to Harry, a surprised look in her eyes. "Why shouldn't I have said something, though? I mean, you were the one that solved it—and don't downplay what you contributed. I like to think myself fairly smart, but there were quite a few arrays there that would've stumped me if not for your brilliance. I only did what was fair."

Harry smiled back at her, before being cut off as she shot him a suddenly firm stare. "And you can just call me Susan, by the way—it's my name, after all."

Harry smiled again, this time a bit wider, and he nodded back to her. "Alright then, Susan—now then, should we move on to Herbology?"

"Oh, yes! Merlin, we're almost late, come on then!" the redhead exclaimed, taking Harry's hand in hers as she suddenly took off down the stairs, Harry hurrying on behind her, and Midnight quickly running after the both of them as they raced off down the corridors towards their next class.

* * *

Despite their haste, Harry and Susan ended up getting to the greenhouses after roll had been taken. Thankfully, Professor Sprout had already heard from Professor Babbling about their meeting, and so they'd been excused of their tardiness. With relieved smiles on their faces, the two parted and went to join their friends, where they were attempting to defang some of the vampiric vegetation Professor Sprout had prepared for them. Ron and Hermione were quick to ask Harry about his meeting, while Hannah lightly teased a blushing Susan.

By the time they had finished pulling the last of the fangs from their plant, Harry had finished discussing his meeting with Hermione and Ron. Hermione's eyes gleamed as he mentioned the assignment and how difficult the last array was supposed to be. She seemed even more excited for her own chance to take Ancient Runes now, eager to test her own mind against the professor's personal creation.

"Just don't be surprised if it takes you a bit, Hermione," Harry cautioned, as they began walking off to Charms. "It's really hard—even with Susan's help, those arrays took a while to figure out."

Hermione, however, just shrugged and shook her head. "Maybe for you, but I've read _Ancient Runes Made Easy_ and _Spellman's Syllabary_ several times over the summer—I'm fairly certain that I can figure the arrays out myself just fine!"

Harry sighed and shook his head, the effort to correct Hermione not worth it. She'd have her hubris checked once she actually got around to attempting the runic arrays herself—that is, whenever she managed to get around to it, as he was still a bit confused just how she was going to get to both Professor Babbling's class as well as Hagrid's after lunch.

Speaking of which, once Charms class ended, Harry led Ron and Hermione back out of the castle towards Hagrid's hut. Despite the excitement from the first half of the day—between Harry's meeting with Professor Babbling, Ron nearly getting bitten by a particularly nasty vine, and Seamus Finnegan once more nearly blowing up himself and his partner in an attempt to cast the newest charm spell Flitwick had taught them—Harry had still remembered Hagrid's offer for lunch and tea before they attended their first Care of Magical Creatures class.

Hagrid was more than happy to welcome them into his home, his black eyes shimmering within the darkness of his beard as he let them in. He paused a moment, though, as Harry walked in, Midnight weaving between the students' feet so that she could sit beside Harry.

"I don't remember you havin' a cat, Harry," the half-giant mumbled, moving aways into his hut and taking the kettle off of the stove. Fang, his massive boarhound, perked up a bit and looked over to Midnight, who eyed the dog back.

"I found her this summer," Harry replied, stroking his hand along the cat's back, making her mewl softly. "She seemed rather attached to me, so I decided to keep her." He paused, noticing Hagrid's slight unease, and raised an eyebrow. "You…don't mind, do you?"

"Mind?" Hagrid asked, before quickly shaking his head. "No, no, not much. I mean, I'm a bit allergic to cats, but yours seems fine enough that she can stay—just as long as she doesn't cause too much trouble, don't want Fang getting too excited now."

Hagrid glanced down at Fang at that moment and gave him a light tap on the side with his foot. At his master's words, the large boarhound dropped back down onto the floor with a low 'wuff', though his eyes remained looking back up at Midnight, his tail slowly wagging back and forth. Midnight, for her part, simply laid back down on the arm of the chair Harry was sat in and leaned into his touch.

"So," Hagrid spoke up, as he began passing out cups of tea and plates filled with freshly cooked lunch—roasted sausages, boiled cabbage and carrots, mashed potatoes, and his ever-infamous rockcakes— "how've your classes been so far?"

Instantly, the trio began describing the past few days with their larger friend, speaking of the classes they were taking and how they were taking to their new teachers. Harry mentioned how his cat had so very subtly let him know taking Divination would be a bad decision, which didn't at all sound odd to Hagrid in the slightest—he was used to dealing with creatures that were smarter than they appeared, after all—and Hermione mentioned how she was aiming to take every class she could over the year.

"I don't envy you, Hermione," Hagrid stated, shaking his head as he set down his plate of rockcakes. "Those classes are some tough stuff once you get into your third year, and taking all of them at once…Merlin's beard, I don't know how you're gonna manage it."

"I'll manage it just fine," Hermione stated once more, unaware of Harry and Ron sharing a doubtful gaze behind her.

"What about you, Hagrid?" Harry asked, looking back up at him as he set his own plate down, the rockcake ignored. "How've your first few days as professor of Care of Magical Creatures been?"

Hagrid seemed to light up as Harry asked that, and he sat up a bit taller in his seat as he replied. "Oh, it's been wonderful—so glad of Dumbledore for offering me the position, it's been my dream since I first started at Hogwarts when I was just a boy. Mind you, it's a bit hard, since I haven't had all my schoolin', but Dumbledore managed to get my records cleared after last year, so I'm catching up—I've even got a new wand!"

With that, the half-giant drew a long piece of wood that looked almost more like a staff than a wand—it was well over a foot long, thick around as an axe handle, and carved from a dark and clearly heavy wood. Harry, though, beamed up at Hagrid—after learning of how he'd been framed in his third year, Harry had felt so sad for his large friend. To know things were working out for the better, now, made him smile.

"It's really great—and, it's given me the excuse to really get up close and personal with some of the nicest of creatures you would've ever seen. Why, just last evening, I started the fifth year Ravenclaws and Slytherins off with learning about thestrals, and then led them out to the local herd…" Hagrid frowned a moment, then added, "Mind you, most of them couldn't see the herd at all, but they saw them eating the ferrets I threw them, so it was still a good lesson in the end."

Harry blinked at Hagrid's words, feeling a faint niggling along the back of his mind. He remembered back to the night they'd arrived at Hogwarts, of the creatures he'd seen driving the carriages towards the castle, and how no one else had seemed to notice them. He'd thought, then, to ask Hagrid about them, but he'd forgotten over the course of the few days. Now, though, it was back in his mind, and he looked back up at Hagrid with a questioning stare.

"Hagrid," Harry began, "what are thestrals?"

Hagrid looked up from where he had started pouring himself another cup of tea and stared back at Harry. "Ah, interested you a bit, did I, Harry? Well, you won't learn about them until you yourselves are fifth years, part of the course and all, but I suppose I could tell you a bit about them now. They're a breed of flying horse, y'see—though, you can't see them, not unless you've seen someone die."

The three Gryffindors fell silent at that, looking back up at Hagrid with shock. "Really?" Hermione asked, curiosity tinting her tone.

"Oh, yeah—it's part of why they're so disliked by modern wizards, they're seen as a death omen." Hagrid shrugged as he picked up his cup and moved back to his chair. "'Course, their appearance ain't helping them much—they're black as night, and gaunt as death, and they prefer fresh meat over any oats, wheat, or even brandy. Despite that, though, they really are harmless, and some of the nicest creatures you might ever see."

"You said that about a three-headed dog, though, Hagrid," Hermione pointed out.

"Oh, but Fluffy really is harmless as long as he ain't guarding anything," Hagrid replied, shaking his head.

"And a giant Acromantula," Ron added, a bit pale even as he mentioned it.

At that, Hagrid drew in on himself a bit. "Oh, yeah…but Aragog was just little when I first raised him, he was completely harmless for a while until I had to release him back out into the forest. Aside from him, though…"

Harry, though, had been thinking hard about what Hagrid had been saying about the thestrals. "I've seen them," he suddenly spoke up, staring over at Hagrid. "I've seen thestrals before, on the carriage ride into the school. They were pulling the carriages."

Ron and Hermione both looked with confusion at Harry, but Hagrid nodded simply. "So you can see them too…it's surprising considering how young you were when it happened, but—" Harry frowned, knowing what Hagrid was referring to— "I suppose you can still see them just fine, anyway."

Hagrid looked at the trio again, his beard shifting from a somber frown to a wide smile. "But yeah, Hogwarts uses the local herd to drive the carriages going to and from Hogwarts. Once they've been tamed, they make great steeds—even with how withered they tend to look."

"Wait, so the horseless carriages aren't horseless after all?" Hermione asked, looking to Hagrid in surprise.

"'Course not, just like how the first year boats don't propel themselves through the water—it's the Giant Squid that helps ferry them along," Hagrid stated calmly, unaware of the even-more shocked expressions the three students were giving him. "But, neither of those are what you're going to be dealing with today—in fact, would you all like to see what I have planned for you?"

The half-giant's face had shifted into one of amusement and eagerness, and the three Gryffindors shared a look—either this was something very exciting, or very terrifying. Either way, they all looked back to Hagrid and nodded, setting the dishes from lunch down, grabbing their bags, and following the large man out of his home and over to where the Care of Magical Creatures class was going to take place.

As they walked, though, Harry's mind kept returning to Hagrid's words when he'd revealed he could see the thestrals. It was true that he remembered the bright flash of green from when Voldemort had tried to kill him as a baby…so perhaps he had seen his mother die just before then, and had managed to remember it somehow. If not, though, Harry could think of a few other instances where he'd watched someone die, and fairly recently, too.

When he'd turned Quirrell to ash with his touch, back in first year when he was thirteen, and just last year when he'd stabbed Riddle's diary and made Tom Riddle disappear. Of the two, Quirrell's death was definitely more likely to be the cause, but he couldn't help but wonder if destroying Tom's diary might've played a part as well. He might've just been a memory, but Riddle had also seemed so much more than that…

Either way, it left a sour feeling in Harry's gut.

Harry pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind as he and the others continued following Hagrid towards the site of the Care of Magical Creatures 'classroom'—which was really just a small clearing outside the forest with a few logs set up as benches—and began leading them a bit into the woods. Midnight kept close to Harry's side as they entered in, and Harry bent down to scratch at her ears affectionately. They both seemed a bit uneased by whatever Hagrid had in store for them.

Once they rounded the trunk of a truly massive spruce, though, Harry found himself breathless at what he saw. Spread out throughout the small part of the forest they'd stepped into was a gathering of large and majestic creatures with front halves of eagles and hindquarters of horses. The creatures—some silver-feathered with blue-grey hair, others golden with brown, and still more with copper and chestnut—wandered between the trees, laid pleasantly in the nearby shadows, and pranced about, flapping each other with their massive eagle-like wings.

"Hagrid!" Hermione exclaimed in wonder. "Those are hippogriffs!"

Hagrid beamed and held himself a bit taller. "Right you are, Hermione—Hogwarts has got a large herd of them that live not far from here, and I managed to convince a few to come for today's lesson." Beaming, he turned back to the three students and winked. "But, you'll learn all about that once class starts—can't be showing you three too much special attention, can I?"

The half-giant then stood a bit taller and looked back towards where they'd come. "Speaking of which, we should probably get back to the classroom now—the rest of the class should be here by now!"

Ron and Hermione both nodded and turned to hurry out of the glade. As Harry turned to follow, though, Hagrid's large hand suddenly reached out to rest on Harry's shoulder and hold him back a moment. "By the way, Harry, I was…well, I was wonderin' if you could do me a favor?" Hagrid asked, his gaze low and his expression sheepish.

Harry blinked up at his friend and nodded. "Uh, sure, Hagrid, what is it you need me to do?"

"Well, y'see," Hagrid started, nodding back to the hippogriffs behind him, "I was thinkin' I could have you be a volunteer for the first part of the lesson—I can't tell you what it is yet, don't want to give away the surprise of it all," Hagrid added swiftly, "but I was wonderin' if you could do it, since you've got more experience handlin' magical creatures already than most of your classmates."

Harry blinked once more—there was no denying that he had more experience than his classmates, just thinking of the giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest or the Basilisk that was now harvested for parts by the Gringotts goblins was enough to prove that—but he couldn't help but feel a bit anxious at how Hagrid was phrasing it. He wouldn't have to fight one of the hippogriffs, would he?

"Sure, Hagrid," Harry finally replied, after a moment's hesitation, "I'll be your volunteer."

Hagrid's black eyes shimmered with joy from within his bushy beard, and he lightly clapped Harry affectionately on the shoulder. "Thank you, Harry, thank you…now, come on—it's time we got back with the others."

Nodding, Harry finally followed Hagrid out of the forest and back to the small clearing for the class. Already, the rest of the students were already there, and to Harry's utter disappointment he could see that Malfoy and his crew were lingering towards the back. On the flip side, though, Harry also saw Daphne and her friends sitting quite aways separate from Malfoy, and when she noticed him, Daphne gave Harry a faint smile and a small nod, which he quickly returned.

As he was walking to join his friends, though—who had sat beside Neville, Seamus, and Dean—Harry found himself brought up short by the sight of another person in their group. Standing off to the side, wearing her bright red auror robes and with her hair a wild shock of pink, was Tonks. The auror looked up as Harry walked out into the clearing and gave him a wide smile and a wave.

"Wotcher, Brighteyes! Nice to see you again."

Harry shook his head slightly, though a smile slipped onto his face at the nickname she called him. Even after knowing who he was, she was sticking to what she'd decided to call him while at the platform. "Nice to see you too, Tonks," Harry replied, looking over to her as he moved to join his friends. "What are you doing here?"

"Part of my assignment while here—since Black and Lestrange are on the loose, us aurors are expected to stay close to any classes that might be out in the open," Tonks explained, before jabbing her thumb back towards the woods. "That goes double for Care, since you're all so close to where the Dementors are set up."

A nervous look passed through some of the students, but Hagrid quickly spoke up. "Now, you lot won't have to worry anything about that today! No one knows these woods like I do—'slong as you stick with me and Auror Tonks here, you'll be fine!" Grinning, Hagrid clapped his hands together. "Now then, welcome to Care of Magical Creatures—all you get your books out, and let's start the lecture."

Another worried look waved over the group, though this one clearly less morbidly worried than the first. "And how exactly are we supposed to read these?" Malfoy suddenly asked, holding his own copy of _Monster Book of Monsters_ in front of him, where it was snarling and squirming against the leather belt he'd wrapped around it.

"Oh, right," Hagrid replied, turning back to Malfoy with a nod, "suppose I should tell you that—just gotta stroke it down the spine, calms 'em down just fine so you can read." He looked up over the crowd and spoke in a slightly more serious voice, "And that's the first lesson you lot gotta know about dealing with creatures—if you treat 'em right, and with the care and respect they deserve, you'll find they're a lot more friendly lot than most others think."

Harry blinked, before a broad smile spread across his face. Leave Hagrid to find a clever way to teach something so important by just choosing which book to teach out of for his class. Turning his attention down to the wriggling book in his hands, he did as Hagrid suggested and heard a faint purring-sigh rise from the cover. The book had stopped trying to fight him, and once he'd removed the belt he'd wrapped around it, the book fell open in his lap.

He noted, with some amusement, that the mystery woman had not managed to get her notes into this textbook.

"Now then," Hagrid stated, clapping his hands together once more, "here in Care of Magical Creatures, you lot will be learnin' how to handle and care for magical creatures. A lot of the creatures I'll be showing you lot over the next five years will be very unique and powerful, and each require a certain level of respect to be given them. If you listen to my instructions, and don't do anything daft, you'll come out of this class with a deeper respect for all magical creatures _and_ all your limbs still attached."

The half-giant's eyes were narrowed on Malfoy as he said this, who seemed to no longer be paying any attention, instead muttering with Crabbe and Goyle towards the back of the class. Tonks, who had been watching, walked over and lightly cuffed the young Slytherin on the back of the head, before pointing his attention back to the front of the class.

Harry snickered softly at the sight, and from behind the three Slytherins, Tonks smiled back and gave him a small wink in reply. Midnight, laying in Harry's lap, seemed to perk up slightly, and her eyes narrowed on Tonks.

"To start you lot off," Hagrid continued, "we will be workin' with some of the most honorable and incredible creatures we have here at the school. Everyone, turn to page—ah, I believe it's fifty-two, ain't it?"

Immediately, the small clearing was filled with the sounds of pages flipping as everyone turned to the page Hagrid had suggested. Drawn out on the page was the image of a large creature with an eagle front half and a horse back half—the very same creatures that Harry, Hermione, and Ron had seen just a few moments ago back in the forest. Scrawled across the top of the page was the heading that read, "Hippogriffs—half-horse-half-eagle creatures, immensely proud and extremely dangerous."

"That's right!" Hagrid announced proudly. "Today, on your first day, you'll all be meetin' some of the hippogriffs from our local herd and learnin' how to care for 'em. But before you can go meet 'em, you lot gotta learn about 'em first. We'll start with you, Hermione, and go around reading from the book for a bit, how's that?"

And so, for the next half hour, the class read through the textbook description of the hippogriff and how to care for them. Occasionally, Hagrid would interject with some of his own personal knowledge from dealing with the Hogwarts herd, saying such things as "now, the book says they're omnivores, but I've only ever seen 'em go after ferrets, foxes, and badgers here, y'see" and "gotta be careful when groomin' them, see, since the feathers and the hair need different care."

Once the group had finished reading the last of the description, Hagrid nodded and beamed at the students. "Very good, very good—of course, there's only so much you can learn from books. The rest, you gotta experience for yourself." Grinning, the half-giant stood and nodded back towards the forest. "Come along, now, time for you to see the real lesson for today."

With that, Hagrid led the third-year class back down the path he'd led Harry, Hermione, and Ron down just a moment earlier. Within minutes, there was a shocked gasp that rose from crowd as the saw the hippogriffs meandering about the glade, a few looking up in their direction as they did. Harry moved quickly through the group so that he was standing close to Hagrid, ready to be called on.

"Right, now," Hagrid stated, looking back to the class. "Today, you lot will be learning how to approach hippogriffs. Now, like the book taught you, hippogriffs are fiercely proud creatures—so, when approaching hippogriffs, you've gotta bow to them, and wait for them to bow to you. You've gotta be respectful when you approach them, and never even think of insultin' one. It could very well be the last thing you do."

A dreadful silence fell over the group at that, and a few students exchanged nervous glances. "But, you don't need to worry about that—and, to prove it, I've asked Harry here to volunteer as the first of you to approach one of these beauties. Alright, Harry?"

Harry nodded, striding through the crowd and leaving Midnight with Hermione and Ron, both of whom looked at him with a bit of worry. Distantly, he heard Malfoy laugh and murmur something to his friends, but he ignored him, and instead merely looked back up at Hagrid with a smile. Hagrid smiled back down at him, before turning and walking over to lead one of the hippogriffs closer—a large and handsome creature with silvery feathers and an almost white-grey hindquarters.

"This here is Buckbeak, Harry," Hagrid stated, taking a step back. "Go on now, go on."

Harry stared at the handsome creature, which stared back at him with fierce, intimidating golden eyes. His eyes drifted down to the six-inch talons on Buckbeak's forelegs, and remembered Hagrid's words of caution. Swallowing hard to steady his nerves, Harry slowly stepped a bit closer, until they were just within two yards from each other, and then he bowed lowly, his eyes still on the massive bird-like creature.

For a moment, Buckbeak did nothing other than stare piercingly back at him. Hagrid shuffled awkwardly to the side, looking between Harry and Buckbeak nervously, and behind Harry, he could hear the murmurs of worry from his classmates. Swallowing hard again, Harry made to step back, but immediately froze as the silver hippogriff stamped at the ground fiercely a few times, let out a short shriek, and then slowly began to lower his head to the ground, his eyes still locked on Harry's, though the piercing fierceness was now gone.

A wave of relief escaped Harry, and he grinned as he stood back up, a roar of cheers rising from behind him. Off to the side, Hagrid clapped his hands thunderously. "Well done, Harry, well done—you can go and pet him now, why, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd let you ride him now, too!"

Harry stepped forward and rested his hand against Buckbeak's beak, the silver hippogriff seeming to nuzzle his outstretched palm affectionately. Harry beamed, and then looked to Hagrid in surprise. "Ride him? What do you mean?"

"Before broomsticks were a popular, hippogriffs were the preferred form of travel for wizards—'swhy they're such a well-bred species," Hagrid clarified, his eyes twinkling as he walked up to Harry's side, "And I think you'll quite enjoy the experience yourself."

Before Harry could state otherwise, the half-giant professor had hoisted Harry up and placed him upon Buckbeak's back. Harry was careful to grip onto Buckbeak's back feathers for support, a bit worried he might hurt the magnificent creature in the process, but all Buckbeak did was let out another short shriek in reply. Then, once they were both settled and ready, Hagrid smacked the hippogriff's rear and shouted out a loud 'get on with ya!'

And just like that, the large horse-eagle hybrid began galloping off down the glade, with Harry hanging on tight for dear life. In a sudden instant, enormous ten-foot-long wings shot out from Buckbeak's sides, and with a few good strong flaps, the two of them were quickly rising up into the air. Higher and higher they soared, and Harry found himself leaning closer and closer into the hippogriff, shock and fear and awe rushing through him all at once.

Riding a hippogriff was a lot different from riding a broom. A broom, he had far more control and could move far quicker. Riding Buckbeak, however, felt wild and powerful, with far less control. He felt shaky, hanging onto the large bird's back, and yet he couldn't deny the feeling of elation that surged through him as they soared over the trees of the Forbidden Forest, feeling the wind whip across his face and hear Buckbeak's thrilled trill roll over him. It truly was a feeling like none other.

When they finally landed in a slightly rough gallop that left Harry a bit jarred, the class let out another cheer, and Harry beamed over at them. Hagrid beamed as well and walked over to help Harry off the large creature's back. "Well done indeed, Harry!" Hagrid stated, clapping him on his shoulder, and then turning to the rest of the class. "Now, then, who's next?"

And with that, emboldened by Harry's example, the rest of the class began walking into the glade and splitting off into small groups to try and approach the hippogriffs. Hermione, Ron, and Neville waved to Harry as they walked together towards a copper-feathered hippogriff, and Daphne, Tracey, and Blaise nodded to him as they walked together towards a handsome golden-feathered-chestnut-haired one across from them.

"Not bad for a first lesson, aye?" Hagrid asked Harry in a low voice, smiling down at him as they watched the class getting into the lesson. Harry grinned, and made to reply, but his attention was suddenly drawn back to Buckbeak, and the third years—the three _Slytherin_ third years—that were working with him now.

"Oh come on then, you stupid bird!" Malfoy drawled, frowning over at Buckbeak. "Bow already, you did it for Potter, why won't you do it for—"

Harry wasn't sure exactly what made him do it, but one moment he was standing beside Hagrid, watching the groups, and the next he was suddenly lunging across the glade, shoving Malfoy out of the way. Buckbeak suddenly reared up, shrieking in fury, his six-inch talons flashing in the dappled sunlight of the glade. There were several shocked screams, and what sounded like a cat yowling in fright. Harry, meanwhile, stared in shock, throwing an arm across his chest in the hope of protecting himself.

It turned out it was unneeded, relief flooding through him as several ropes suddenly shot out from over his shoulder and bound up Buckbeak, making the large creature drop to the ground with a surprised squawk.

Malfoy, who was still on the ground and looking a bit more pale than usual, shouted out, "Did you see that?! It nearly tried to kill me!"

"Only because you were daft enough to insult it, you ferret-faced flobberworm!" Tonks suddenly shouted, marching up to Malfoy with an almost murderous expression on her face, her hair an angry crimson. "Your professor specifically told you to be respectful to the creatures in this class, and what do you do? You go and insult the large, predatory, murderbird on steroids! What did you expect?"

Harry, meanwhile, had been helped back up to his feet by Hagrid, and together they walked over to Buckbeak. The hippogriff looked up at them, and, seeing they were friendly faces, let the both of them help him out of the bindings that Tonks had shot out at him, eventually helping the large bird-horse hybrid back up onto its feet, where it stamped the ground and shrieked loudly once more.

The groups around them were all at a standstill, the hippogriffs staring as well.

Hagrid, however, turned to Malfoy, his expression thunderous. "If Harry hadn't had been here to push you out of the way, Malfoy, or if Tonks here hadn't been here to keep Buckbeak from attacking, I don't know if you'd be here still. Fifteen points from Slytherin for failing to listen to instructions and reckless endangerment of other students. Now get out of here, before you do something else daft!"

Malfoy shot Hagrid and Harry a mean scowl, but after a moment merely backed off and walked out of the glade, Crabbe and Goyle close behind him. As the trio walked off, the groups around the glade returned their attention to their hippogriffs, the moment almost forgotten.

Sighing, Tonks slowly meandered over to Harry's side. At the same time, Harry felt something brush up against his pant leg, and looked down to see Midnight nuzzling affectionately against him. Tonks shook her head, shooting him a tired smile, her wand spinning in her hand before slipping back into its holster.

"Well…that certainly could've been worse."


End file.
